


Lifeline

by Chidney



Category: Glee
Genre: Blaine - Freeform, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Harnas, Kurt - Freeform, M/M, Namibia, Romance, Wildlife
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-28
Updated: 2016-07-09
Packaged: 2018-05-29 13:50:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 50,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6378496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chidney/pseuds/Chidney
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the story of when Kurt goes on a journey to volunteer at an African wildlife sanctuary. There he meets orphaned baby monkeys, and cuddly cheetahs, and a certain leopard-loving staff coordinator named Blaine. And even though Kurt wonders, at first, how he’ll ever survive without half-decent Wifi and hot showers, he eventually begins to see the charms of life at the sanctuary, and discovers the importance of always expecting the unexpected.</p><p>Harnas is a real wildlife sanctuary, located in Namibia. The animals mentioned in this story, as well as their stories, are all real.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

### Thursday, first week

  
The shaking from the landing plane made Kurt wake up with a startle.  
   “I can’t believe we’re here!” Tina grabbed his arm, sounding way too excited. They had just traveled for 34 hours, in three different airplanes, and it wasn’t until now, on the last two-hour flight from Johannesburg to Windhoek, that Kurt had been able to slumber. Tina, on the other hand, had slept most of the way from New York to London, and almost all the way from London to Johannesburg. She was literally bouncing in her seat.  
   The people in the aisle finally moved, and they could reach their carry ons and exit the plane, straight out on a big airfield. The sun started burning Kurt’s face as soon as he crossed the doorstep, and he reached for the tiny bottle of sunscreen in his backpack. This, of course, was unnecessary, seeing as he didn’t even have the time to put it on before he was inside again, moving almost zombie-like in the line towards the passport control. It seemed never-ending.

A little more than an hour later, the heavy bag dropped to the floor and Kurt sighed with relief. They were in a shared dorm, where three bunk beds took up most of the space.  
   “Coffee or shower first?” Tina asked, as she sat down on her assigned bunk. Kurt put his carry on backpack on the one above.  
   “Shower”, he replied without hesitation. He felt gross.  
   Tina had already found her stuff in her big hiking backpack, and headed towards the only bathroom while Kurt started going through his large suitcase for hair products and something to wear. The practical packing he had been forced to make left small opportunities for fashion, but he found a pair of black jeans and a white, fitted t-shirt. It was much less flamboyant than his New York self, but at least it was clean. After a short shower ( _“Maximum 5 minutes. Water is scarce!”_ ) they finally got some coffee, and Kurt could swear it was the best thing he had had in years. They found two-minute noodles in a department store close by and decided to have that for dinner – Tina was excited to see if she could find any more people going with them to the sanctuary, Kurt was just too tired to care – and called it an early night. Even though it was just after lunchtime in New York, Kurt fell asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow.  


  
”Hey, Gabbana”, Blaine cooed, as he came close to the enclosure gate. “Hey, boy, how are you doing today?”  
   Gabbana rubbed his side against the high fence, careful not to touch the electric wires at the bottom, and let Blaine fingers slide over the golden fur. Blaine pushed the gate open, forcing the leopard to take a few steps backwards, and slipped in. As soon as he’d closed it, Gabbana was rubbing up against his leg like a big house cat. Blaine took a deep breath and let his fingers stroke the leopard's back.  
   As soon as he sat down in the shade under the acacia, Gabbana sneaked up on him and play-pounced him from behind.  
   "Ugh, you've grown!"  
   The leopard looked up at him with big, innocent amber eyes, and then lay down next to Blaine.  
   "I can't believe it's almost been a year", Blaine said, scratching the leopard behind his ears as he kept talking. "You used to be such a tiny ball of fluff!" The leopard rolled over on its back, letting Blaine scratch his belly, as if to say "I still am!"  
   Something was going on outside the leopard enclosure. People seemed to be trying to catch the warthogs again. There were young adults from all over the world running around in different directions and hoping to herd the two young pigs back to the inside of their fence. At the same time, other people were carrying buckets full of meat and vegetables along pebbled paths, on their way to feed the various animals at the farm. They were all there to help, to make a difference for the injured or orphaned animals at the wildlife sanctuary. Barely more than a year ago, Blaine had been one of them.  
   “I was lucky, though”, Blaine said to Gabbana, and rubbed his cheek and chin. Gabbana closed his eyes, and stretched his front paws across Blaine's legs. “I got to stay.”  
   Because after his third time volunteering at the sanctuary, after spending nearly six months in the African bush during a  two year period, he’d been asked to join the staff. Without a moment of hesitation, he’d accepted. He'd give up anything he'd pretended to care about in the U.S.  for just an extra day in Namibia. The orphaned Gabbana had arrived to the farm just a couple of weeks before the end of Blaine's third stay, and Blaine had fallen for the leopard immediately. As soon as he was part of the staff, he'd been given responsibility for the tiny cat, as well as for Gabbana's sister Dolce. They were his favorite animals on the farm, and the gentle giant Gabbana had a special place in his heart.  
   “Blaine!?”  
   He looked up, and saw three more or less desperate-looking volunteers by the fence. “Could you help us, before they manage to get into the garden?”  
   “Sure!” he called, and was just about to move Gabbana from his legs when the leopard spotted the warthogs, and sprinted towards them, only stopping by the electric wires. “Just try to keep them away from the leopards so they don't freak out, alright?” Gabbanas sister was stalking the pigs too, staying low and almost crawling up and down the fence.  
   Blaine stood up. He wasn't surprised to find his break interrupted. That was life at Harnas. Sometimes sad, sometimes exhausting, but never boring.  


### Friday, first week

“Harnas people? The bus for Harnas is here! Anyone going to Harnas?”  
   “Finally!” Tina bounced out of her seat by the pool, where they had been sitting the last two hours. “Kurt, that’s us!”  
   “Huh?” he murmured, slumbering in his sun chair. Yes, he had had a full night’s _wonderful_ sleep, but it was still the middle of the night NY-time. “Are we leaving?”  
   “Yes! The bus is here!” Tina had already slung her big backpack on her shoulder, and Kurt saw two blonde girls in about their age do the same thing. He got his suitcase and dragged it through a gate towards a blue van with wild animals painted all over it. In the front seat there was a weird, not too pleasant-smelling cardboard box, and by the window, two girls were already seated.  
   “Hi”, they greeted him cheerfully as he found his way to the back seats. One of them stretched her hand back to shake his. “I’m Carly, nice to meet you.” He could hear an unmistakable Canadian accent.  
   “Kurt”, he said, as Tina climbed in next to him. “Nice to meet you too.”  
   The other girls introduced themselves as well. There were Angelica from Sweden and Mila from Germany, they were the blonde girls who had stayed at the same hostel as Kurt and Tina. Then there was Lisa, who was Norwegian but must have had her roots somewhere in the Middle East, judging by her dark eyes. After about an hour’s drive, they picked up Philip, another German, at the airport. Apparently, according to the driver, seven people were fewer than usual. The car felt way too crowded.  
   “So, what are you guys most looking forwards to?” It was Carly speaking. “I mean, I’ve been there once before, so I kind of know what to expect, but for you all it must be so great to try to imagine everything! I know I sure had a lot of thoughts and wishes about it before my first time”  
   "I’ve read a lot about it”, Angelica said. “The _Soul of a Lion_ , tons of blogs and stuff, and seen a couple videos too. I am really hoping I get to go on some kind of walk, that sounds incredible.”  
   “It is”, Carly confirmed, "and you probably will. I was on both baboon walks and cheetah walks last time I was there. Baboon walks are interesting, you never really know what to expect, and the cheetah walks are truly amazing. I think they are probably my favorite activity.”  
   Next to Kurt, Tina looked starry-eyed. She really had been looking forward to this for ages, counting down the days for months.  
   “What was your favorite animal last time?” Angelica asked, and Carly started talking about a baby caracal, or something like that. Kurt wasn’t even sure what kind of animal a caracal was – a bird, maybe? – and found himself drifting off. The car was hot, and because of the dusty dirt roads they couldn’t use the air condition without having to inhale a sandstorm in every breath. Staring out at the widespread bush, he slowly fell asleep with his head against the window.  


"Hey, go away!” Blaine turned around in the chair and raised his hand. He found Quinn staring at him with a surprised smile. “Oh, sorry, I thought you were an ostrich.”  
   “I'm not sure if I should take that as a compliment, or...?” They both laughed.  
   “I only saw a shadow, I thought they were back to try and steal my food again”, Blaine explained, as Quinn sat down across from him.  
   “They really are becoming a pain”, she agreed. “How is their enclosure going?”  
   “We finished digging down all the poles this morning, it just needs a fence and a bit of wire, I guess. Hopefully we’ll have them in there by Sunday or so, and then we can eat in peace.”  
   Quinn nodded. “That will be nice. I’m pretty tired of-“ She spun around, and slapped the ostrich behind her gently on the beak. “Hey, leave my sandwich alone!” The ostrich bent his long neck and glared at her before running in its awkward way over the grass, catching up with its flock under the big tree.  
   “So, how was research?” Blaine asked her. “Is Pride still doing okay?”  
   “She was fine, it was a good morning.” Quinn smiled. “Her cubs were really active and Amanda forgot to close the car window, so Merci was exploring the driver’s seat.” Blaine laughed.  
   “I hope someone got pictures of that, a young cheetah in the front seat must have looked hilarious”, he said. Quinn laughed too.  
   “Well, Andrei was there so I’m expecting at least a hundred pictures on facebook tonight. I think he got a few good pictures of Max and Mauritz as well, they had just had a kill and were about to rip up the stomach of a wildebeest.”  
   There had been a time when talking about ripping animals open at lunch would have made Blaine’s stomach turn, but he'd gotten over that long ago.  
   “Wow, a wildebeest”, he said instead. “That’s a bit larger than normal for them, isn’t it?”  
   “Well, it was a young one, not much bigger than a springbok. But it is their third kill in a week now, they are doing really well.”  
   Blaine had finished his sandwich and emptied the last of his coke. Quinn mimicked his actions.  
   “What are you doing until the meeting?”  
   “I’m not sure”, Blaine said. “I really should catch up on some laundry…”  
   “I guess I really should too”, Quinn agreed. “But I was thinking about going past the baby babies, I haven’t been in there for a few days. Want to come?”  
   “I’d scare them to death”, Blaine chuckled. “But I could play a little with Ronnie, Rika and Rosie, that was a while ago.”  
   After putting their empty plates and cans at the bar, they walked off towards the farm’s youngest baboons.  


Kurt woke up startled, again – there was something moist and furry in his face. More or less panicked, he opened his eyes, but couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing.  
   “What is that?!” he exclaimed, and whatever-it-was disappeared with a small yelp. Kurt dried his face on his hands and blinked a few times, questioning once again what on earth he was doing here.  
   “It’s a baby jackal”, Tina said, and held the little creature up for him to see. It was furry, red-grayish and resembled a tiny fox. Currently, it was biting Tina’s pinky, which made her look down at it with a soft smile.  
   “Isn’t it adorable?” she asked, petting it on the head. “Apparently they were abandoned, so Harnas took them in.” Not until then, Kurt realized there were three more jackals in the car, all sitting in the other volunteers’ laps. They were kind of cute, he had to admit. He just didn’t like having them in his face when he was sleeping. He put his finger up to it, so that it could smell him, and it stopped biting Tina’s hand. Tina gave Kurt a look. “Do you want to hold him?”  
   Kurt shrugged, and Tina put the little jackal in his lap. It walked around for a few minutes, its tiny claws prickling through his pants, before curling up and falling asleep. Kurt scratched it gently behind the ear.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: So, this is the first part of the (sometimes a bit absurd) multi-chapter I've been working on for the past two years or so. I'm so excited to finally share it with you guys! The fic is finished, which means I will post weekly (probably Sundays) until all the chapters are up. Hopefully, you'll stay with me until then. There will be angst, but also relentless flirting and tons of fluff (and monkeys, too!)  
> The biggest thanks to my girlfriend for giving me ideas to the fic, but more importantly, the motivation to finish it.  
> Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Glee characters. Sadly, neither do I own the animals mentioned.


	2. Chapter 2

### Friday, first week

“Welcome to Harnas!”  
   Blaine didn’t usually do the introduction with the new volunteers, but an unexpected flat tire had made Will late back from lion feeding. The group of people now sitting around the table in front of Blaine looked about like any group on any Friday. A bit tired after the long drive, a little hungry, quite nervous, but most of all incredibly excited. He recognized one of them, and after a quick look at the list of names he remembered her as Carly. He smiled at her. The other faces were all new. Blaine smiled at them too.  
   “My name is Blaine, and I am one of your coordinators”, he started. “I’m originally from the States, but I’ve been working here at Harnas for about a year now. I started out as a volunteer, though, so I know how you’re feeling. Don’t worry, you will have a great time here.”  
   Blaine could see big grins on most of their faces. Some of them could barely sit still.  
   He asked the volunteers to introduce themselves, and they took turns around the table to do just that. Most of them said something about how excited they were, or what they were most looking forward too, along with their names, ages and where they were from. There were only seven of them, a pretty small group.  
   When they were finished, Blaine proceeded on to the information. He hadn’t done this before, but the office had given him a list of things not to forget and it turned out fine. Most of the rules were simple: no enclosure-visits before you’ve got the proper training for it, no alcohol during daytime, no walking around alone after dark, no volunteer-staff relationship or volunteers in the staff quarters... pretty basic stuff. He then explained how they used paper tokens instead of money and how to get hold of those, gave them the information on showers, wifi and electricity (or sometimes lack thereof), a very short crash-course in dealing with snakes, and lastly told them in which cabins they would be staying and handed out the keys. Three girls in Himba, two in Topnar, and the guys in Ovambo.  
   “Dinner tonight is here, at seven. That's when you’ll meet the other volunteers, as well as the rest of the staff. I'll be here then, too. Now, let’s see who can find their cabin first”, he finished, and like that, the new volunteers were out. The Himba girls won, which wasn't surprising since their cabin was the closest. There was something so familiar about their excitement, as they hauled their luggage over the sand paths, that he almost started laughing. Sometimes, he missed being a volunteer.  
   He got in the land rover, slammed the door shut to make sure it actually stayed that way, and drove back towards the farm.

So this was where Kurt would be staying during the upcoming three weeks. He stared at the tiny wooden cabin. It was standing on poles, raised about two feet from the ground, with a couple of concrete steps leading up to the door. The front and back walls were made out of logs lying on top of each other, and the side walls – if you could call them walls – were mosquito net and sliding doors, covered with canvas fabric. Inside – if you could call it inside – every corner of the square room had a bed standing in it. Open closets split the room into quarters, and an empty corkboard above the bed made Kurt wish that he had remembered to bring photos. He chose the bed in the far right corner. Philip took the one to the left, closest to the door. That way, they almost had their own halves of the room. Kurt definitely wouldn't need the thick woolen blanket that was covering his duvet, so he folded it carefully and put it away on top of the closet. After all, it was almost 104 degrees both inside the cabin and outside; freezing couldn’t possibly be an issue.  
   The unpacking seemed to never end, and he sorted his clothes in neat piles in the small shelves, organizing his things as well as possible in the limited space. He hadn’t even brought much, and the closet was filled up almost instantly anyways. When he was finally as satisfied as he would ever become with the organizing, he lay down on the bed. It was a lot more comfortable than it looked, and Kurt closed his eyes.  
   “Ready for dinner?” Philip asked, after what felt like just a minute, and Kurt sat up again. His watch told him it was five to seven.  
   “I guess so”, Kurt answered. “Do you think we can find our way back there?

Dinner was crazy. People behaved as if they had spent too much time with monkeys. Which, Kurt figured, might be exactly the case.  
   “Okay, guys, we’re having chicken and rice, and some kind of carrots. There is gravy over there, and veggies, yours is at the end. Remember, there's loads of us, so sharing is caring, okay? Newbies!” A blond girl said, too fast and almost automatically, as if she had been saying the same thing for weeks.  
   “That’s you guys”, someone called, when no one moved. “Come on, hurry, we’re hungry!”  
   Kurt looked at Tina, who looked at him, and then at Carly, who was already on her way up. The others started to follow her example.  
   “Run!” someone shouted, which was followed by a laugh.  
   And then the chaos started. As soon as Kurt sat down with his plate, someone yelled “HOUNDDOGS”, and people flew up from their seats, running and pushing and trying to jump over the tables - and each other - to get first in line. Someone called “CROCS!” and another group was up, acting just as crazy.  
   “We had sandwiches for lunch”, a girl said when she passed by their table, as if that was supposed to explain everything – apparently she had seen their startled faces. Carly only laughed.  
   “Give it a week”, she said, “and you’ll be running too. The food is great, and you're always hungry here.”

The food was followed by introductions, from which Kurt honestly couldn’t remember much. There was a lot of laughing, particularly from the “oldies”, as the volunteers who weren’t new called themselves. Kurt and the other newbies were up first.  
   “Okay, guys, what do you want to know about them?” an adult, who Kurt hadn’t met before, asked.  
   “Name”, someone called.  
   “Age!”  
   “Where you’re from!”  
   “What you do back home!”  
   “How long you’re staying!”  
   “Size!” a guy called from the back table, and a few people laughed.  
   “No, Puck, we don’t need to know their shoesize, or any other size you may be referring to!” the man said, and everybody laughed. “But isn't there one more thing you guys usually ask about?"  
   “Relationship status!”  
   “So, that’s it, guys”, the man said. “Start from the left, alright, Carly?”  
   “Okay, Mr. Shue!” Carly said. Apparently she knew the man from her last stay. “I’m Carly, from Canada…”  
   The rest of the introduction was a blur. After the newbies, the oldies were up, one team at a time. A few facts stuck, there was a girl from South Korea and two Australian guys, most of the others were Europeans or Americans. There were a few older volunteers, around 35, but the rest were around Kurt’s age, maybe a year or two younger, and the majority was girls. After the oldies, it was the coordinators turn, and Kurt really tried to learn their names, at least.  
   The big Australian guy who introduced himself first was called Finn. Next in line were two girls, the first one blond and very sweet-looking. Her name was Quinn, and she was from the US. The second one called herself Alex, had short, brown hair in a pixie cut and told them she was from Namibia. She and Quinn shared the responsibility for research and foodprep, whatever that was. After them it was Mr. Shue, who insisted they should call him Will but whom everyone seemed to call Mr. Shue anyways. And then, at the end of the line, was a familiar smile.  
   “I’m Blaine, as you already know, and I am 24. I am originally from the U.S. Harnas has been my home for about a year now, and I’ll stay as long as they’ll have me. I do a lot of animal walks, outside feedings, and I’ll also see you at farmwork sometimes, when you’re not working with Finn. Oh, yeah, and I am single.”  
   This was followed by wolf whistles.

Blaine crawled out of the small - and very dirty - pool, the water dripping from his clothes as well as from his hair.  
   “You better light that bonfire, Finn, or, I’ll get sick, and I’ll make sure Will makes you do my work too”, he said, trying to sound intimidating. Judging from the way Finn started laughing, it didn’t have the desired effect.  
   “I’m sorry, dude, I thought you were Puck, promise”, he said. Blaine couldn’t really understand how that was possible, seeing as Puck was at least a foot taller than he was, and had a mohawk, but he didn’t really care. All he wanted was to get warm. The 104 degree day had turned into a 45 degree night, the water had been cold, and Blaine was freezing.  
   “Looks like they are going to have it up and running soon”, Finn added, with a look towards the fire pit. “Go get dry, and I’ll find the actual Puck.”  
   Blaine sat down on a log close to the fire, which two of the oldies had lit. It was growing fast, and he soon had to move backwards to not burn his face off. The volunteers started to gather around the pit, like every night. Someone put some music on their phone, and people were chatting in small groups. A roar from behind told him Finn must have found Puck after all. Blaine turned when a girl sat down next to him. He found Carly.  
   “Hey, welcome home”, he said with a soft smile. It was always nice to meet returning volunteers.  
   “Thanks”, she said, and her eyes sparkled from the fire. “I can’t believe I’m finally back here! It’s felt like it’s been forever, but now it feels like it was just weeks ago.”  
   “When were you here again?” Blaine asked. “What was it, October or something?”  
   “December”, she said. “So it’s not even half a year ago, but sometimes it feels like at least a lifetime, maybe more."  
   “I know”, Blaine said. “I felt the same after my first time here.”  
   “How was it after the second?” she asked, and he saw her smile drop as he answered.  
   “It was… it was difficult.” They were both quiet for a second. “But let’s not think about that now”, he added. “You have amazing weeks here first, and then you can always come back a third time, right?”  
   “I can’t wait to see the animals again”, she said, and just like that, the sparkle in her eyes was back. “How is everybody doing? How is Aviel? How are Dolce and Gabbana? How’s Atheno?”  
   “They are doing great”, Blaine said. “They are all a bit bigger than last time you saw them, though. Gabbana has become a giant, almost knocks me to the ground these days!”  
   “I can imagine”, she laughed. “They must be- Oh, hi Tina, come sit down!” One of the other newbies, an Asian-looking girl, was standing next to Carly, and one of the guys stood behind them. They both sat down, Tina on the ground and the boy on one of the benches a little bit further back.  
   “We were just talking about the animals”, Carly said, turned to both of them. “You’ll see them soon, it’s so fantastic, they really are amazing.”  
   Tina smiled.  
   “I’m very excited”, she said. “What’s going to happen tomorrow?”  
   “You’ll be with Will all morning”, Blaine said. “He will walk you around the farm, show you all of the animals and the enclosures, tell you were you can and can’t go, what you can and can’t do and so on.”  
   “I can’t wait to see the farm!” Tina said, and Carly nodded. “I’ve seen a few pictures online, it looks absolutely amazing.”  
   “It’s even better”, Blaine said. “It’s the best place on earth.”  
   He could see the enthusiasm, the anticipation, the pure passion in both girls’ faces. But as he turned his head slightly, his eyes caught on the boy behind them. He was looking at the fire, watching the flames eat the wood, his face completely expressionless.

### Saturday, first week

“… and newbies, you’ll be with me. Enjoy your day”, Mr. Shue finished the morning meeting. The rest of the volunteers, around forty people, grabbed their bags and started crossing the lawn towards the morning activities that for Kurt seemed a bit bizarre. He was sitting next to Tina under a big tree in the corner of a huge garden. So far, he’d been woken up at five from the lions roaring, almost stumbled over a giant tortoise in the middle of the lawn, been scared to death by two big antelope appearing out of nowhere, and nearly fallen into the pool as an ostrich picked his shoulder with its beak. Also, there had been no coffee at breakfast. The day was starting off great.  
   “Well, guys, we’d better get going, there is a lot to see today!” Mr. Shue said. “I’m going to show you all the enclosures and all the animals, and tell you everything there is to know about this farm. It will be a bit much, I know, and some of it you will probably forget. That is why I am not teaching you how to handle the bigger animals today. Alex will introduce you to the cheetahs tomorrow morning, and Blaine will cover the baboons in the afternoon. Let’s go!”  
   They started with a pretty small enclosure just next to the trees where they had been sitting, and there Kurt found out that caracals were definitely not birds. The coppery cats standing on the other side of the fence had black hair on the top of their ears, and they reminded him of a small lynx but without the spots. They walked past the enclosure where there were supposed to be three cheetahs, which were nowhere to be seen, and over to the opposite side of the lawn. The small animals in the concrete enclosures made Tina squeak.  
   “Meerkats!”  


Two hours later, Kurt thought they had seen every inch of the farm. They really did have a lot of animals, everything from mice and rabbits to leopards and cheetahs. And a crazy amount of monkeys. Also, Kurt had stumbled on another three tortoises, they seemed to be everywhere.  
   “And lastly”, Mr. Shue said, as they stopped in a chaotic shed. A group of oldies were walking in different directions, carrying bowls and brooms and rakes and god knew what else. “This is the heart of Harnas, where all the magic happens. Welcome… to foodprep.” He made a big, dramatic gesture which was met with laughter from some of the guys. Kurt just shook his head. The shed didn’t really look like much. There was a long stone table filled with bowls, buckets and plates along one wall, three bath-tubs filled with a mess that Kurt didn’t even want to think about down the other, and a row of trash bins in the middle. It smelled bad.  
   “You will spend a lot of time in here”, Mr Shue said, and Kurt sighed. “This is where the volunteers prepare all the food for all the animals, and from here they go out and feed everyone, and also clean the enclosures. No food goes out from here without being checked by either Quinn or Alex. Our four teams are each responsible for a certain group of animals, and in that way, we know that every animal gets properly fed every day. Your team members will teach you all about your animals, starting this afternoon, and from Monday on, we expect you to know it by heart. In a week, when new volunteers arrive, you might be the ones teaching them.” He laughed at their expressions. “Don't worry, it sounds harder than it is. There are usually never any problems.”

"Oh, great. Hey, newbies!", Blaine said. There was a group of volunteers crossing the lawn on their way to lunch, but he didn't feel too bad interrupting them. "I could really need a few extra hands, just quickly, one of the kudus has gotten through the fence and we need to chase him back onto the lawn."  
   "The antelope?" It was the Asian-looking girl, was her name Tina, maybe? "Sure, we'll help!"  
   She was with that guy again, the one who she'd hung out with the night before. He sighed loudly. There was something about his face, a little bit sharp, like it had been carved out of something hard. The frown didn't suit him, but so far, it was the only expression Blaine had seen him wear.  
   "What do you need us to do?" the girl asked.  
   "If one of you could run and get a bucket of milk - do you know where the kitchen is? - and maybe we could use that to make him follow us?" Blaine said, and the girl nodded excitedly.  
   "Mr Shue showed us this morning, I'll run and get some", she said, and was off before Blaine could even reply. She was like most of the volunteers, always ready to help. Blaine liked it.  
   "Won't we be late for lunch?" It was the frowning guy, Blaine couldn't remember his name.  
   "Maybe a little, but the other's will save food for you", Blaine said. Something about the attitude rubbed him the wrong way, even though the guy had barely said a word. "But we have to get the kudu back in first, he's still too young to fend for his own. Come on, the sooner we get it done the better."  
   He half walked, half jogged towards the gate. The guy behind him dragged his feet in the sand, but followed.  
   The milk didn't work, that much was obvious when Tina came back with a bucket. The kudu took one look at it, and then turned away, trotting in another direction. His newly won freedom was much more exciting than food.  
   "We'll have to chase him, then", Blaine said. "Try to form a line, and we'll keep him close to the fence and herd him towards the gate."  
   When after about ten tries, they still hadn't succeeded, Blaine was considering calling for backup. He didn't get the chance, though.  
   "You need help?" a voice behind him said, and Quinn stood there with another few volunteers. "When you didn't show up for lunch, I guessed you could do with a few more people."  
   Blaine hugged her.  
   "You're the best", he said. "Really, you are. Great, then hopefully we can get this done."  
   It took another few attempts, where they ran along the fence, forming walls, trying to get the kudu back to the lawn. They were sweating hard in the heat, and groans mixed with laughter when they almost managed to herd a group of warthogs in instead. Thankfully, someone slammed the gate shut before they managed to get in. Unfortunately, the noise scared the kudu away again.  
   Finally, they got all the animals to the right sides of the fence, and Blaine high fived Tina, who was closest. He then looked around, and his eyes found her friend. He was, surprisingly enough, still frowning.  
   Something was off with that guy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: It's Sunday, which means new chapter, and now, our boys have at least (kind of) met. I hope you all like where this is going. 
> 
> I got a comment regarding the amount of names, and I would recommend focusing on the ones we recognize from glee, as well as the ones frequently mentioned (you'll learn those eventually). The rest aren't that important, don't put too much energy into learning them. If you have any other questions, or comments in general, I highly appreachiate them!
> 
> The next chapter includes a bit more interaction between Kurt and Blaine, so stay tuned! :)
> 
> (Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Glee characters mentioned in this story, nor am I in any way affiliated with Fox, or with Harnas Wildlife Sanctuary.)


	3. Chapter 3

### Saturday, first week

“Okay. So, we are responsible for the meerkat family, Yanni and Loede, Chloe and Abu, Dolce and Gabbana, Audrey the vervet, Popeye – he's an owl – the turkeys on the lawn, the three baby lambs, the bigger lambs, Fluffy the hamster, Blueballs and Estelle, the ducks and geese… oh, and the kudus.”  
   If Kurt looked twice as confused as Angelica did next to him, it still wasn't enough to match how he felt. They had been divided into their teams about fifteen minutes ago, Kurt was in Snoobabs (or something like that) and they were now in the foodprep area to start learning about their animals. The problem was, Kurt had no idea what most of these animals even were.  
Michaela, who was team leader for Snoobabs, kept talking non-stop about what each of these animals ate, but Ylva, a Norwegian girl who was also in the team, stopped her.  
   “Shouldn’t we just show them instead?”  
   “Please do”, Angelica said, and Kurt nodded.  
   “My brain is still full from this morning.”  
   Both Michaela and Ylva laughed, even though Kurt hadn't meant to be funny.  
   “I know how it feels”, Ylva said. “I’ve been here a week, and my head's still feels stuffed from those first days.”  
   “It will get better”, Michaela promised. “Today, just try to remember which animals we feed. We’ll go over it all again tomorrow morning, and then we can focus on what to feed them.”    They started out in the big refrigerator room. Kurt jumped when the first thing he saw was a giraffe leg, hanging from the ceiling. Michaela laughed again.  
   “Oh, yeah, you’ll get used to that too. Last week there was a cow head. Just grab all the yellow bowls and buckets you see, okay?”  
   Kurt did so, trying hard not to breathe through his nose. The smell of death was almost unbearable, and he had to fight the urge to vomit. Carrying three bowls filled with something, he met up with Ylva and Angelica outside. They had been getting cleaning equipment.  
   “We’ll just leave all of this here”, Michaela said as they passed through the foodprep area again. “We have three baby monsters that need milk first.” Kurt wondered for a moment if they were going to bottle feed crocodiles.  
   “They’re not monsters, they’re all cute and cuddly”, Ylva protested, which made Kurt doubt the crocodile theory after all.  
   “What are we feeding?” Angelica asked, apparently just as confused.  
   “The baby lambs”, Michaela said. Her voice made it sound like their death was near.

Feeding the lambs turned out to be a messy process. There were three of them, in different shades of brown, running around the lawn and jumping like crazy as soon as they saw the bottles. As the volunteers sat down in the grass, the lambs were all over them, doing their best to reach the milk bottles and not caring who they stepped on in the process. A the darkest lamb found Kurt’s bottle first, and started suckling on it so excitedly that Kurt almost dropped it. The milk dripped everywhere, a lot of it ended up on Kurt’s pants and in the grass, but even he couldn’t become annoyed with the fluffy creature. He held the soon empty bottle above his head, but the lamb wouldn’t give up, putting its front hooves on Kurt’s shoulders and trying to get more milk.  
   “Hey!” he said, scratching the little one under his chin, “there is no more, you’ll have to wait!” The lamb didn’t seem to care the slightest, and Kurt gave him the empty bottle to suck on just to calm him down.    “They seem okay”, he said, turning to Michaela. “Where is the monster part?”  
   “They’re okay at feeding time”, she agreed, shooing the little lamb she’d been feeding away. “But they always think it is feeding time. And they know who feeds them; they keep running around my legs as soon as I’m on the lawn. And they eat my cake. It was sweet the first weeks or so, but it is starting to get annoying. Yesterday, during lunch break, I was napping in the shade, and woke up from Pablo trying to suck milk from my nose!” A moment later, she smiled sadly.  
   “I’m going back home on Thursday, though, so I guess I am going to miss them.”

### Sunday, first week

“So Quinn on research and Alex on foodprep, you know that much already. Alex, I promised the newbies you would give them the cheetah induction first thing after the meeting. Blaine, you’ll do baboon induction after tree meeting in the afternoon, and in the morning, I was thinking maybe you could take the horses out? There have been a few volunteers asking for that.”  
   “Horses is fine”, Blaine said, smiling. “Which ones do you want me to take?”  
   “I put Sara, Andrei, Michaela and Sven on, I think…”  
   “I meant which horses”, Blaine smiled. “But that’ll be a nice group.”  
   “Oh, take Joe, Lightning… I guess you could take Stanley if you could catch him, and the twins haven’t been ridden in a while.” Blaine wrote a quick note.  
   “Nadav is still on leave”, Will continued the morning meeting, “so Derek will give the morning tour. Finn, I’ve put five volunteers with you to finish the ostrich enclosure, I'm hope we can move them this afternoon. Any questions?”  
   They all shook their heads and stood up, walking towards the group of volunteers, currently chatting or half sleeping in the shade under the big tree.  
   “Good morning, guys!” Will called, and they all sat up, looking expectantly at him. “Are you all ready for a new day?” A chorus of cheers answered him.  
   “Well, I guess most of you are”, Will said, and looked at Puck, who was leaning against a tree, obviously still asleep. “Could someone…?”  
   “I’ll do it!” Finn said, before anyone else had the chance. He borrowed a water bottle from a volunteer, and emptied it over Puck's mohawk before anyone had the time to even react. Puck flew up, saw Finn’s smiling face, and charged straight at him. They continued to chase each other back and forth across the lawn, until Puck finally managed to get Finn close enough to the duck pond to push him in. Finn grabbed his shirt in the last second, and they both ended up falling straight into the water.  
   This was such an ordinary event that Blaine didn’t bother to pay much attention to it. Instead he was watching the newbies' faces. Some with shocked expressions, some laughing, that guy, Kurt, Blaine had learned that his name was, looked… well, bored. He was a bad match for Tina sitting next to him, laughing like a maniac.

“This is Shingela” Alex said, stretching her hand forwards to greet the cheetah walking up to her. The cheetah immediately started sounding sort of like a motorcycle, and Kurt cautiously took a step backwards. He wasn’t the only one.  
   “It’s okay, she is just purring”, Alex said, and smiled. “As long as they are purring, they are usually content. Just as a cat, they don’t like when you touch certain parts of their body, but otherwise these guys like cuddling. Look, here comes Jeanie and Lueki.”  
   The two cheetahs strode through the grass towards them, and one of them walked up and stroke Carly’s leg. She gently petted it on the back of its head.  
   Alex kept talking, giving them all the information on how to handle cheetahs – don’t scream, don’t run, stay above eye level, push their heads down in case something happens – and so on. Then they were allowed to say hello to the three big cats. Their fur was a little rough, not as soft as it looked, and Kurt could feel his fingers vibrate from the purring of Lueki, whom he was petting. It was a bit scary; even though it was more or less tame, it was still a cheetah. It was a giant cat with big sharp claws and teeth, which could probably kill you if it wanted to. Tina looked dazed, and even Kurt felt adrenaline rush through him. It wasn't every day you petted cheetahs, after all.  
   “On Monday, you guys are allowed in here if you are with an oldie. From Tuesday on, you can go in here whenever you want, although never alone. Enjoy these guys, they really are incredible when you get to know them and they appreciate your time ”, Alex finished the induction, and they walked past the volunteer room to leave their bags before joining their teams at foodprep. 

Blaine double checked the lock to the stables before mounting Stanley and trotting up to the rest of the group. From the way they held the reigns, he could tell they had all been riding before, but he checked with them anyways. They all nodded.  
   “We’ll go easy on the horses today, it’s so very hot out”, he explained, as they started walking on one of the bigger paths, the one leading towards the church. “Hopefully we will see some game, you come much closer when you are on the back of a horse.” They rode in silence for a while, the everlasting sound of the savannah buzzing in the background. As they reached the church, they turned left, past the village waterhole and over to the other side of the airstrip. There, he saw the giraffes. Stanley stopped.  
   Blaine made a sign for the others to be quiet, then slowly made Stanley walk out in the clearing, careful not to come to close to the three giraffes. There were two bigger ones and a calf, not even half as tall as its parents and still a little wobbly on its legs. All three of them eyed the horses watchfully, but didn’t seem to take notice of the humans on their backs.  
   The group just stood there, watching the giraffe family eat from the trees. Even the horses seemed to have frozen. Blaine looked at the group of volunteers. They had all been at Harnas for a while, at least three weeks, but he was pretty sure none of them had seen anything like this. For them, as well as for himself, it was what Blaine used to call a magical moment. Totally unexpected, unedited, and absolutely beautiful. Michaela had tears running down her face.  
   As the group of giraffes slowly started to move away from them, Blaine got the horses moving again, in another direction. He made Stanley walk up next to Lightning and Michaela.  
   “Are you okay?”  
   She nodded, somewhat unconvincingly.  
   “It’s just… I don’t, I really don’t want to go home. I want more of this.”Her voice broke.  
   “I know”, Blaine said. “Believe me, I do. Have you thought about extending your stay?”  
   “I looked into it”, she said, “but I can’t afford to rebook my flight ticket. I guess I have to go. I just thought… eight weeks, you know, it sounded like forever. But it has gone so fast, I am not ready to go home yet.”    “I know”, Blaine said again. “But you could always come back. Harnas will still be here. It won’t be the same people, but it will be the same spirit. And the same animals."  
   “I know.” Michaela smiled through the tears. “And I will, as soon as possible. And until then, there will always be volunteers here, loving this place just as much as I do. I am going to miss it so much, though.”    “Who is going to be team leader for Snoobabs?” Blaine asked. That was one of the team leader chores, to pick out and teach a new one before they were leaving.  
   “Emma”, Michaela said. “It feels good, she is going to do a great job. And Ylva and Steffi will still be here, and the newbies seem okay…”  
   “Yeah, which newbies are yours, again?” Blaine asked.  
   "Kurt and Angelica", Michaela replied. "They seem good, I mean, I only saw them at foodprep yesterday, but I think they will learn. Angelica is sweet, really excited, but aren’t we all… Kurt is… I don’t know, he feels a little bit out of place, in some way, but I think he will open up for it. It sort of looks like he likes the animals."  
   “It does?” Blaine couldn’t help but ask. That wasn't the impression he'd had.  
   “Yeah”, Michaela said, “I was with him all afternoon yesterday, and I don’t think I saw him drop the frown once. But when we were feeding the lambs, Pablo was all over him, dripping milk everywhere, and Kurt was almost smiling!”  
   "Good", Blaine said. "Maybe there's hope, then."

“Okay, so these are our baboons.”  
   Kurt and his fellow newbies were all standing outside three middle-sized enclosures, containing a lot of fluffy brown jumping things with long tails. Blaine had his back to the enclosures, facing Kurt and the rest, who kept a little more of a safe distance. The baboons seemed to know they were going to have company, because they were all at the closest fence, making lots of noise.  
   “These two guys, the baby babies, Bella and Vlooi, are just a few months old. They were both orphans, and farmers brought them in here”, Blaine explained, and gestured to the left enclosure. “They are both very gentle. But as you can see…” He took a step closer to the enclosure, and the baboons shrieked and ran away, “they are scared of me. Baboons this young prefer females. They can get used to males too, and be really sweet, but they are more likely to bond with the girls, if they have a choice. These guys, on the other hand…”  
He took a step to the right. Immediately, the next group of baboons started screaming instead. They didn’t run away though.  
   “This is Ronnie, Rika and Rosie.” Blaine pointed them out, and Kurt couldn’t understand how on earth anyone could tell the difference.“They are about a year, a year and a half. They are incredibly playful, you can have a lot of fun with these guys, and they love it. They do, however, prefer males. Females are automatically lower in rank in the baboon world. Sorry, girls.”  
   “Does that mean we shouldn’t go in there?” a girl asked.  
   “Well…” Blaine started, “I do not say they can’t be nice to females. Alex, for example, is amazing with them and they have learned to respect Quinn as well. As long as you go in by yourself, or at least not with a guy, it could be okay. They would bite you at first, just a test bite, it doesn’t hurt bad, and depending on your reaction, you could be accepted. If not, you would probably have all three of them attacking you. I am not trying to scare any of you, but baboons are a bit... tricky to deal with. They are nice and sweet and wonderful, most of the time, but you have to know what you are doing. I’d go on a walk with them first, if I were you. If you really want to get to know them, talk to me or any of the other coordinators, and we'll see what we can do. I was told on my first day here that fear is temporary but regret is forever, and that is really true. Don't go home regretting that you didn't dare to try something that you would have wanted to do.”  
   “I think I’ll stick to the small ones”, Tina whispered to Kurt, and he nodded. Even after that pep talk, he wasn’t too keen on going in there, even though he wasn't female.  
   “So the first thing you need to know is that baboons are incredibly curious. They will find anything interesting, and they will try to take it from you. Therefore, you empty your pockets before you go close to a baboon enclosure. You take out any bobby pins or elastics, you remove jewellery, and you take out any kind of piercing. Anywhere, it doesn’t matter where it is, they will find it and rip it out. Flip flops? Leave them outside on a safe distance. No tank tops. I’ve seen the bigger baboons completely undress a person in less than a minute, but t-shirts are usually a safe choice. Any questions on that?”  
   Kurt just stared. So did the others. Were they seriously supposed to go in there? Did they have to?  
   “I am going to go in there now, to show you how to handle them”, Blaine said, putting his radio and his phone a few meters from the enclosures. “You’re Philip, right, could you help me with the gate?”  
   Philip nodded, apparently not really sure how to respond.  
   Blaine smiled.  
   “It’s fine, I’m the alpha male in this group, they won’t even try to escape, or do anything to you. Just close the gate as soon as I'm in there, okay?”  
   Once Blaine was in the enclosure and Philip closed the gate, the baboons were all over Blaine. One of them seemed content just sitting on his hip with its arms around his waist, and Blaine held her steady with one hand, grooming her back with his fingers, while he played with the other two. They were jumping, making noises, climbing up on his shoulders and on his head. Blaine swung them around, making them do backflips in the air, catching them as they jumped on him again. Kurt wasn’t sure who enjoyed it the most, the baboons, Blaine, or possibly himself. There was so much happiness in Blaine, in the way he interacted with the baboons, but also in the way he joked with the volunteers and the staff. There was a mutual connection between him and the baboons. Kurt hadn’t been sure animals could really love people but after seeing the monkeys with Blaine, there was no doubt. Kurt found a smile on his face, more genuine than he could remember having had in ages.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this timezone, it's Sunday, which means new chapter! I actually thought uploaded this last night (past midnight) because I couldn't wait 'til morning, but something seems to have gone wrong so I hope it works this time. This chapter was a bit more explanatory then the earlier ones, but the next one will have a lot more Klaine interaction in it, I promise! Let me know what you think! :)


	4. Chapter 4

### Tuesday, first week

"Hey, Kurt, would you do Audrey's enclosure while I feed the meerkats?" Ylva asked, and Kurt nodded. It was the first day they were allowed to enter the animal enclosures, but he had done foodprep all weekend and seen his teammates feed Audrey enough times. He grabbed the yellow plate that contained neat little piles of various leftovers, fruits and vegetables, and managed to carry a rake, a bag and a plastic canister with the other hand.  
   The old vervet monkey was nowhere to be seen, which meant she was probably hiding in her house. Kurt put the things on the ground outside, and brought the food as he opened the gate.    "Audrey", he called softly. "Hey, girl, I've got your breakfast." He kept talking as he put the food on top of her house. Since Audrey was blind, she relied on her hearing to know where people were, and got nervous if her visitor was silent for too long.  
   Kurt knocked on the roof three times, to tell her that the food was there, and she immediately stuck her head out the opening in the front. The one tooth showing made it look like she was smiling. Audrey jumped from the house to a branch to the roof, graceful even though she couldn't see where she was going. Her tiny little hands searched for the food, and she found the plate and Kurt's hand simultaneously. Her fingers grabbed Kurt's thumb and she lifted his hand carefully towards her face. For a moment, his reaction was to pull it away from her, but she only smelled it gently. She kept holding his thumb in her left hand, while she used her right to put tiny pieces of pasta in her mouth. After a few minutes, Kurt started grooming her back in the same way that he had seen Blaine do with the baboons at the induction. Audrey let out a content sigh.  
   It took Kurt way too long to realize that he was supposed to actually clean the enclosure, not just stand there. Ylva was probably waiting for him. He quickly got the bag and the rake, cleaned out the enclosure, and filled up Audrey’s waterhole from the plastic canister. After petting her head a few times, he left the enclosure, and promised her that he would come back later.

“Okay guys, these are our wild dogs.” Blaine had stopped the car right outside the gate, and the volunteers jumped out from the back of it. “A few things first. These guys won’t attack us, as long as we are a group, but I don’t want anyone walking away alone. Also, we have to keep an eye out so that the entire pack doesn’t sneak up on us. If they come too close, you look at them, and you show them that you know that they are there. You take a step forwards, and act like you are stronger than they are. You do not run, scream, or back off. Okay?”  
   They all nodded, their faces serious. Blaine couldn’t help but laugh.  
   “You look like I’m sending you to die”, he said. “They’re not bad, just a bit curious. As soon as they realize we don’t have any food, they will go away. Are you ready?”  
   They nodded, again. He opened up the gate, and they all walked in. So far, there were no wild dogs to be seen. He closed behind them and led them through the bush to the waterhole.  
   “That”, Kurt said, as they all stopped, “is disgusting.”  
   Blaine laughed. The waterhole was green, smelly, and covered with a layer of algae.  
   “Well, that’s one way of seeing it”, he said.  
   “In what other way could you see it?” Kurt asked.  
   "It’s just a dirty waterhole”, Blaine said. “It’s mostly water. And a little mud, algae and probably some wild dog poop. You’ll see worse.”  
   “Fantastic”, Kurt muttered, but Blaine didn’t feel like listening. Instead he handed out the buckets he’d brought and kicked off his shoes. Then, he stepped into the waterhole.  
    “We have to empty it all, scrub it, and refill it”, he said. “Let’s go, guys.”  
   Emily and Amanda had both cleaned enough waterholes to know how it was done. They stood on the edge and used their buckets to throw the water out, trying but not really succeeding not to get splashes all over them. Lisa looked a bit hesitant but soon imitated them, and after a repulsed look at the water, Kurt must have felt forced to do the same. Blaine worked from the middle of the waterhole, it was by far the quickest way, and one after another, the volunteers joined him. The water may be dirty, but it was pretty cool and felt nice in the heat.  
   “There’s a wild dog over there”, Amanda said, after pouring yet another bucket of water out.  
   “Just keep an eye on it, it’s okay”, Blaine reassured. “If you throw the water in its direction, it’ll probably go away."  
   He was right, and the wild dog soon disappeared. They got company a few more times during the twenty minutes it took them to empty the waterhole completely, but never too close.  
   “Now we just have to get the mud out”, Blaine said, “and then we’re done!”  
   “How do we do that?” Kurt asked, but Blaine didn’t have to answer. Both Emily and Amanda had already started scooping it up with their hands, and throwing it over the edge.  
   “Of course, why did I even ask?” Kurt sighed. Blaine tried not to let his annoyance show. It wasn’t rare that the newbies thought some of the work was a bit disgusting in the beginning, but it was rare to have someone who showed it that openly. How long was this guy staying again? Three weeks? Why was he here, anyway?  
   Another ten minutes, and they were finished. Blaine used the tap to fill the hole up with nice, clean water.  
   “Good work, guys!” he said. “One down, only seven to go!”  
   “There’s more?” Kurt asked. “I thought we were done! I stink!” Apparently, he was completely unaware of just how annoying he was.  
   “Get used to it”, Blaine answered, and, just to rub it in a little bit more, he added: “If you’re lucky, there is hot water in the showers tonight.”  
   Kurt groaned. Blaine couldn’t help wanting to maybe just happen to push him into the next waterhole. By accident, of course. It would probably do him good.  


### Wednesday, first week

“Watch their tails!”   
   Kurt and Tina managed to put the cage down in the back of the car without injuring any of the baboons three baboons currently inhabiting it. They were taking them for a bushwalk. Kurt didn’t know if he should be excited or just scared.  
   “Good.” Blaine was still holding Abu, a baboon who was a little larger than the other three. “Now, if you guys climb in there, I can let him down.”  
   Five volunteers and four baboons were a bit more than the car was made for, but they managed to squeeze in in the cage structure that was the back of the car. As soon as Blaine let Abu go and closed the double doors, the baboon started. He was jumping on the cage with the younger monkeys, exploring all the volunteers’ pockets, and managed to untie at least three pairs of shoes before they finally reached their destination. As soon as the back doors opened, Abu was out again, trying – and thankfully failing – to get into the driver's seat.  
   “As soon as I open cage up, we start walking”, Blaine instructed. “I don’t want all four of them on the car.” He gave them a few quick reminders on how to handle the baboons, and then untwisted the wire that held the small cage closed.  
   It didn’t take more than a minute before Kurt felt something grabbing his fingers. He looked down to see one of the baboons walking next to him on two legs, holding his hand.  
   “You want to get up?” he asked, and swung it up on his waist in the way Blaine had instructed them earlier. It immediately climbed, settling on his shoulder, its tail tickling his back. In front of him, he saw Philip do the same with another baboon. Matilda had one sitting on her arm, and the fourth one was currently grabbing Blaine’s leg as he walked, looking like a very furry leg warmer.  
   “I thought they were supposed to walk?” Kurt commented.  
   “We’ll do the walking”, Blaine said shortly.   
   “They do make nice boots, though”, Kurt tried. Blaine just raised an eyebrow. “Not like that! But it’s sitting on your foot, it kind of looks like one.”  
   “I guess so.” Apparently, he really wasn’t in the mood for talking.  
   Kurt gave up, and managed to walk next to Tina instead. It wasn’t very easy, the bush around here was pretty thick and the baboon kept holding its arm in front of Kurt’s eyes. He got scratched from a long thorn, making the blood trickle down his leg.  
   “Why are we doing this again?” he asked her, as he bent down to wipe it off. Immediately, the baboon jumped to the ground, pulling his hair in the process.   
   “Because the baboons love it”, she answered. “Come on, it’s not bad!”    Kurt didn’t answer. But as they sat down in the shade under a tree a while later, he started to see her point. The baboons immediately started running up the trunk, moving from branch to branch with gymnastic jumps. They looked like they were having the time of their lives. Kurt found a smile on his face.  
   “I love seeing them out here”, Matilda said. “They look so much more like baboons.”  
   “They love it, too”, Blaine said. “They really enjoy this, it’s the best time of their days!”  
   “I wish I would've been able to do that”, Tina said with amazement, as one of the baboons made a particularly big jump, grabbing the branch with one hand before skipping to the next one. “It looks so effortless!”    “Sometimes I think I would’ve liked to be a baboon if I got another life”, Blaine admitted. “And then I see them fight. That usually changes my mind.”  
   They all laughed.  
   Kurt leaned backwards to lie down, but shot straight up again as soon as he touched the ground.  
   “Ouch”, he said. “I hate thorns.”  
   “You better get used to them”, Blaine said, and there was the annoyance again. Kurt didn’t think he deserved that. “They are everywhere.”  
   After a few minutes, one of the baboons came down from the tree, and sat next to Kurt. She started grooming his hair. It didn’t really hurt, it was more of a tickling feeling, almost like a massage. She made a click-like sound with her lips, which Kurt tried to answer in the same way. Blaine looked at the monkey, and for a moment, he looked surprised. Then he looked at Kurt. When Kurt met his eyes, he instantly looked away and stood up. As Blaine started climbing the tree, all the baboons clung to him, one on his back, another one around his leg, the third one scurrying all over the place. The one by Kurt stayed still.    Blaine took his place among the branches, playing with the baboons in the way he'd done in their enclosure. Kurt couldn't take his eye off the scene.  
   Because if anyone had asked Kurt two weeks ago what made a guy look good, he definitely wouldn’t have said anything about monkeys. Now, on the other hand… the way Blaine was sitting up there, with one baboon on his shoulder and another one in his lap, while swinging the third one back and forth, smiling like he was having the time on his life, Kurt couldn’t help it. It was attractive. Blaine's muscular shoulders, tan complexion and wide grin may have had something to do with it, too. 

"Do you need help?"  
   Blaine spun around, surprised to find Kurt and Tina behind him. Even more surprisingly, it was Kurt who had asked.  
   "Uhm, sure", he said, a little too stunned to find a better reply. "I need to drive this up to the village and unload it by the fire pit."  
   "Looks like more than a one-person job" Tina noted, her eyes studying the trailer full of branches.   
   "It was supposed to be done at farm work this morning, but things came up", Blaine said. "Help would be greatly appreciated, though."  
   "Sure." Kurt was already sitting at the edge of the trailer, and Tina joined him. Blaine got on the tractor, and it huffed to a start.  
   They drove away, zigzagging between the trees on the much to small dirt road. They had barely made it half way when the engine suddenly died. Blaine tried restarting, without success.  
   "Fuck", he muttered.   
   "What happened?" Tina called from the back.   
   "I don't know!", Blaine said, getting off the tractor. "It just died."  
   "Is the fuel tank filled?" Kurt asked.  
   "Of course it is." Blaine wasn't going to admit that he honestly hadn't checked. "I guess I'll have to radio someone."  
   "I could take a look?" Kurt suggested.  
   "Do you know anything about tractors?" Blaine couldn't keep the sarcasm out of his voice.  
   "My dad's a mechanic", Kurt said. "In Ohio."  
   In just thirty seconds, he had the hood open, and was bending over the engine. He was muttering to himself, testing and adjusting things that Blaine had no idea what they were.  
   "There!", Kurt finally said, and screwed something onto something else. "Try again."  
   And this time, the tractor coughed back to life.  
   "I used to work in his shop during summer breaks." Kurt explained as he walked past Blaine and back towards the trailer. "This was a pretty basic problem."  
   "Thanks!" Blaine called, and as soon as Kurt had climbed up, they were off again.  
   Even with the engine problem, the project was done a lot quicker than Blaine had expected, seeing as there were six hands working instead of two. In just half an hour, the branches were stacked in a semi-neat pile next to the fire pit, and their arms were only moderately scraped from all the thorns.  
   "Are you guys finished for today, or do you want to go back to the farm?" Blaine asked.  
   "I think I'm going to try for a shower before lapa night", Tina said. Kurt looked hesitant.  
   "I think I'll go back with you, if that's okay, Blaine? I promised Audrey I would pay her a visit."    "Sure, that's fine." Blaine hid his astonishment behind a smile. "She'll appreciate that." 

“Audrey, sweetie?” Kurt slipped through the gate. “Hey, girl, how’re you doing today?”  
   Her face became visible in the door of the house, as he sat down on the bench. She climbed down the log, and greeted him by once again smelling his hand. After deciding that he wasn’t dangerous, the monkey let him groom her back. He kept talking. It felt a bit stupid at first, sitting there, speaking more or less to himself. But Audrey seemed to enjoy the company, and honestly, so did Kurt. He had visited her a few times the past days, and she seemed to get more and more comfortable around him. And he had seen her with a few other volunteers, not at all acting as calm as she did when he was around. He couldn’t help feeling a bit flattered, that she chose to trust him.  
   After talking nonsense for a while, his words kind of ran out, and he started singing quietly instead. The first notes of Defying Gravity escaped his lips, and Audrey sighed, lied down in his lap, and closed her eyes.  
   “You like that, don’t you?” he said, and then kept on singing. As he scratched behind her ear, she fell asleep. He neither moved, nor stopped singing.  
   Kurt had been at Harnas for almost a week now, and time had passed so fast he had barely even noticed. He also hadn't realized that somewhere along the line, he'd actually started to like the place, at least better than he'd ever expected to. Sure, a lot of the work he did here was hard, and dirty, and disgusting, and he’d probably been complaining a lot. He hadn’t had a warm shower for six days, neither had he had a single cup of coffee, and no matter how much he slept, he was always tired. But the animals had turned out to be pretty nice after all, if you ignored the smell and the mess they always seemed to make. The baby lambs had started following him around on the lawn, and they really were adorable. He’d visited the meerkats with Tina the day before, and having them climb around on him, standing on his head to check out the view, and nibbling his ear once in a while, was an unexpectedly pleasant experience. And Audrey, the sweet little vervet monkey sleeping in his lap, had captured him in a way he hadn’t known was possible. She was so vulnerable, and yet she trusted him completely.   
   But most of all, Harnas was different from anything he’d ever done before. It was new; he never knew what he would be doing in the next hour, or even the next second. The everyday routine that he was used to from home was gone. Life felt more real here, the days mattered in a way he wasn’t used to. The work he did made a difference in the life and death of those animals, and they were grateful for it. They didn’t judge him, not even when his clothes looked horrible. He could be himself around them, relax, and he felt like he was starting to take a step away from his New York self. The workaholic who hated his job, but hated his free time more, was slowly fading.  
   Kurt hadn’t known how much he’d missed smiling.

”Hi there, boy!” Blaine had Gabbana on top of him, licking his face, before he’d even fully sat down. He laughed. “Hey, calm down!”  
   Gabbana answered by putting his paws on Blaine’s shoulders, giving him another lick on the nose, and almost pushing him to the ground.  
“I think someone missed you”, Quinn said, also laughing.  
   “We’ll, apparently”, Blaine said, pushing Gabbana away and sitting up again. “God, he’s getting strong!”  
   “They’re not that small anymore”, Quinn agreed, and stroke Dolce’s fur as she walked past. “I guess they’ll soon be too big to be taken on walks.”  
   “I know”, Blaine said, and a sting of sadness hit him. “I’ll hate that day.”  
   “Talking about walks”, Quinn continued, “how was the baboon walk this morning? No sudden impulses to, I don’t know, strangle a particular someone?”  
   “Not really”, Blaine said. Because of course he had told her about his frustrations with Kurt after cleaning the wild dog waterholes. Wasn’t that what you had colleagues for? “Or well, a few times, maybe. But it was okay, after a while.”  
   Quinn raised an eyebrow.  
   “Any special reason?”  
   “Well…” Blaine didn’t really know himself. “He’s good with the baboons. Rosie likes him.”  
   “So you’re basing your judgment on the opinions of a baboon”, Quinn clarified. “That’s sane, Blaine.”  
   Blaine shrugged, and scratched Gabbana’s forehead.  
   “Well, not just that”, he said. “I mean, yes, he is annoying, but I think he’s starting to open up for the experience, and beginning to actually enjoy it. In the end of the walk, he didn’t even complain when Abu peed on him, and then he willingly offered to help with the fire wood, and went back to sit with Audrey afterwards. Look, there he is.”  
   Kurt was walking past the leopard enclosure, a backpack slung over one shoulder, heading towards the village. As Kurt saw them, he raised his hand in a small wave. Blaine waved back.  
   “He does look a little bit more relaxed than he did when he arrived here”, Quinn agreed. “I was a little worried there. Sure, he's been acting like a brat, but he also seems a bit broken. Kind of the way you did when you arrived."  
   "I wasn't at all like that", Blaine protested. "I wasn't disgusted by everything. I wasn't complaining!"  
   "No, you weren't", Quinn said calmly. "But it took weeks before we got to see you smile like you actually meant it."

“How on earth am I supposed to get a pirate costume in the middle of the savannah?!” Kurt was rummaging through his closet, unable to find anything that looked even slightly like something a pirate would wear.  
   “Relax, it’s just for fun”, Tina said. She was already dressed, in a striped tank top, a pair of black jeans, a scarf round her neck and with a scar drawn with eyeliner on her face. “Don’t you think everyone has the same problem?”   
   “Couldn’t they just have told us there would be themes?” Kurt muttered.  
   “So that you could have brought your pirate closet?” Tina laughed. “Come on, the lack of resources are part of the fun. You have to be creative. Anyways, Carly said only like half the people really dress up.” She stepped around the shelf, looking through his closet.  
   “Tie this around your head”, she said, and handed him a red scarf. “And how about this?” She held out his favorite jacket, black and double-breasted with golden buttons and seams. “I still don’t understand why you brought this one, but I guess it’ll come in handy now. You’ll look like a captain.”  
   Kurt held it in front of him. It actually wasn’t bad.  
   “Thanks, Tina”, he said. “I’ll meet you outside the showers?”  
   She smiled. “We have to leave in five minutes, so you’ll better hurry.”

Apparently they weren’t the only ones who had decided to meet by the showers. There were at least twenty volunteers standing there, in different versions of variously ambitious pirate outfits. They were all chatting excitedly, the Lapa Night was the biggest event of the week.   
   He found Tina talking to Carly and Angelica, and all four of them headed towards the farm. On Wednesday nights, the last night for the group leaving every week, the volunteers had dinner at the farm, in a more festive setting with music, cold drinks and, apparently, a dress-up theme. When they arrived, they found the tables set, the spotlights lit and the bar open. There was already a line. Kurt ordered a cider, and put fifteen tokens on the desk.  
   The evening started off with dinner, followed, they were pleased to find out, by dessert. After some struggle with the sound system, someone got the music working, and a loud and pretty good song in a language Kurt had never heard before was playing. Most people were still sitting down, or standing by the bar. The coordinators had arrived, too, Blaine and Quinn were sitting in the sofas by the wall, Finn was by the bar, talking with a group of volunteers that Kurt had yet to learn the names of, and Mr. Shue was just entering the Lapa, with someone who Kurt suspected was his wife.  
   Blaine and Quinn. The view disturbed Kurt a little more than it probably should have. They looked very… comfortable, around each other. Blaine was talking, gesturing a little with his hands, and Quinn had her hand on his arm, her head slightly tilted, and was laughing at whatever Blaine told her. As she answered him, Blaine didn’t take his eyes off her.  
   Kurt told himself he was silly, but it didn't do much good. Instead shook his head and turned to Tina.  
   “Do you want another drink?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the late update (although, it's still Sunday at least). I hope you enjoyed reading, I'd love to know what you thought of it!


	5. Chapter 5

### Thursday, second week

The morning was horrible.  
   Ignoring the fact that Kurt had a dreadful headache, and the fact that there was still no coffee at breakfast, there were also the goodbyes. The ceremony started right after breakfast, with the coordinators all making speeches. And as if the speeches hadn't been sad enough, the crying volunteers made it even worse. Kurt hadn’t really gotten to know most of the seven people standing in front of them, but he knew Michaela, his team leader, and she was completely devastated. She and another girl, whom Kurt didn’t know the name of, clung to each other during the entire ceremony. The speeches were followed by a lot of hugs, and the leaving volunteers got certificates that confirmed their stay here and said a little about what they had learned. Mr Shue said a few more words, words that could probably have been pretty inspiring and all if Kurt’s headache wasn’t slowly trying to kill him, and then they all walked towards the bus. It was the same blue van that had picked Kurt and Tina up at the hostel.  
   And there, as if things weren't bad enough already, the crying started for real. Almost all of the volunteers knew and would miss the people leaving, and they all knew that most of them would probably never meet again. Kurt stayed in the background with the rest of the newbies as the oldies cried, hugged each other, exchanged the last email addresses, hugged again, and cried a bit more. At last, Mr. Shue called the leaving volunteers to the bus, and it drove away. Most of the people who were left were still crying when they arrived at the morning meeting.  
   It was almost a relief to hear that Kurt would be doing foodprep all morning. At least he would be in the shade, most of the time, and be able to refill his water bottle. And he didn’t have to think much, either; after the first week, most of it was routine.

“Alex?”  
   “Yeah?”  
   “Do you have the key to the cooler?” Blaine entered the chaos in the foodprep area, hauling two huge buckets of mieliepap, and looking around. “Oh, my god, this is worse than normal!”  
   Alex laughed.  
   “It’s a busy morning, most waterholes has to be cleaned out today. And we’re already late because of the goodbyes.” Well, that explained why people were currently running around him, bouncing into each other in the tighter passages. The fact that some of them were carrying big (pretty blunt, but still) knives, made it look slightly dangerous.  
   “Do you need any help in here?” he asked. “I was supposed to go on outside feeding, but apparently the mature volunteers are doing that. And the hole in Harriet’s fence is fixed, so the goats won’t come in and eat her food. All I have to do is put the things back in the cooler, and then I’m free.”  
   "If you have the time to help Hounddogs cut some meat for the banded mongooses, that would be amazing”, Alex said. “Then I could get started with the cactus for the tortoises, Owls have to clean out Gumbi’s waterhole before lunch and that is going to take forever.”  
   “Sure”, Blaine said. “Just give me the keys, and I’ll be right back.”  
   He caught them in the air as she tossed them to him, before picking the buckets up again and putting them in the cooler, heading back to the foodprep area.  
   Blaine loved foodprep. He knew it was the least favorite activity for most volunteers, and he understood them, but he still loved it. As a volunteer, he hadn’t liked it much, either, not because it was boring but because there was so many other things to do that were more fun. But as he started working as a coordinator, he had really started to appreciate the task. For one, it was the most important thing that happened at Harnas. It was also a big part of the team building for the volunteers, communication and team work were necessary. And seeing them a day like today, when it was chaos everywhere, and everyone was a bit stressed and tired from last night, and most of them probably wanted to do something else, still working hard as they cut into meat and various vegetables, it made him proud. The first day in foodprep, most volunteers thought, or at least desperately hoped, that they wouldn’t ever have to touch half of the things in there. A couple days later, their hands were covered in donkey blood and mieliepap, and they didn’t even care to wash it off.  
   Blaine grabbed a donkey leg, and sharpened the blade of his knife against the stone table before beginning to remove the skin.  
   “Hey, Hounddogs, how much meat do you need?” he asked.  
   “Two buckets full”, Andrei answered. “But we’ve got about a half already.”  
   Blaine started cutting small pieces. Next to him, a few Snoobabs were preparing the food for the day. Steffi was grating carrots, Emma was crushing catfood, and over at the leftover bin, Kurt was digging through the kitchen trash and yesterday’s dinner to find something other than eggshells and potato peels to feed the baboons. On his other side, Alex and Lilly were trying their best to cut small pieces of cactus without getting to many thorns in their fingers. For a moment, Blaine almost felt like a volunteer again.  
   “Can I have a piece of that?” Kurt was back at the table, and looking at Blaine’s meat. “We need more for our meerkats.”  
   “Sure”, Blaine said, and cut a chunk. “Here.”  
   “Thanks”, Kurt said, and took it. Blaine got a sudden impulse.  
   “Do you want this too?” he said, and held up the piece of skin that he had removed.  
   Kurt looked at him. “Why would I?”  
   “It would make a nice hat, don’t you think?”  
    “A nice... wait, what?”  
   “A hat.” And just like that, Blaine put the donkey skin on top of Kurt’s head. “Look, it suits you!”  
   Kurt stared at him for a second, completely shocked. Honestly, Blaine was pretty surprised himself.  
   And then the war started.  
   Kurt still had leftovers all over his hands, and he started to smear that goo on Blaine’s arms. Blaine, who had experienced much worse since he arrived at Harnas, just dipped his hands in the leftover bin and did the same back. Kurt was squirming, trying to avoid it, and managed to run over to the bucket of mieliepap, grab a handful, and throw it at Blaine. Blaine ducked behind a trash bin, but still got some of the corn porridge in his hair. Oh well, he could shower later. Kurt, on the other hand, was up for a shower now. Blaine got hold of the hosepipe, and turned the water on, looking for Kurt, but wasn't able to find him. He spun around, and saw Kurt trying to sneak up behind him, but before he managed to do something about that, he stumbled on the hose, and ended up falling straight into one of the bath tubs. Kurt triumphantly put the donkey skin on Blaine's head.  
   And then Kurt started laughing. Blaine just stared, still stuck in the bath tub, completely soaked. Kurt was laughing, like really laughing, and once he’d started, he seemed unable to stop. Blaine started chuckling too. The frown on Kurt’s face, the one that had been there from day one, had disappeared completely. And Blaine couldn’t help noticing how great he looked without it.

### Saturday, second week

Static.  
   The noise from the radio transmitter had in the beginning been pretty annoying, but Kurt was starting to forget it was there. He was sitting on the rooftop of a car, holding on with one hand while moving the GPS tracking device around him with the other. The sun was blazing, but the wind as the car drove was absolutely wonderful, managing to make even the Namibian heat bearable for a while. If it hadn't been for the bumpy sand roads that almost made him fall off, and for the thorny branches that threatened to poke his eyes out if he didn’t remember to duck, it could have been pretty relaxing. So far, it was definitely one of his best mornings at Harnas.  
   Beep.  
   It was neither loud, nor clear, but it was definitely something. Beep. Lilly knocked on the roof of the car, and it stopped.  
   “We've got signal on Pride”, she told Quinn.  
   “That’s great”, the blonde said, climbing out of the front seat window and up on the roof. She moved the tracking device a few times over her head, pushed a button or two on the transmitter, and then gave it back to Kurt and Lilly.  
   “Now, hold it like this”, she instructed Kurt, and shifted it to a horizontal way. “And whenever there’s five bars on the transmitter, Lilly, you knock again, okay?”  
   It took them less than 15 minutes to find the spot where they had to leave the car. The rest of the tracking was be done on foot. Since the cheetahs they were tracking didn’t follow paths, neither did they, and there were a lot of bushes in the way. Everything had thorns, and Kurt lost track of the scratches he got on his legs after just a few minutes. He swore loudly as he got stuck in a tree and it ripped a hole in his t-shirt. At least he had brought his water bottle. Now that they were not on the roof anymore, the heat was suffocating.  
   Beep. Beep. Beep. The further they got, the stronger the signal got too, and they were lucky enough to find the cheetahs pretty easily. There were three of them, in the shade under a tree.  
   “So, this is Pride and her cubs, Harnas own success story”, Quinn told them, and took out a notebook from her backpack. “It’s Dinga in the back, and Merci in the front. Pride grew up at the farm and was bottle fed as a cub. As she grew older, they started taking her on walks in the Lifeline. First shorter, then longer, and then they started leaving her out here. A day, two days, a week, and so on, when they saw she could hunt. She has been permanently released for a couple of years now.” Quinn wrote something in the notebook. “About a year and a half ago, we found her with twin cubs. It was a total surprise, we hadn’t even known she was pregnant."  
   “So if this is Pride, is this the Lifeline?” Apparently Kurt wasn’t the only one who was confused.  
   “Oh, sorry, I forgot you haven’t been here before.” Quinn looked apologetic. “Yes, this is the Lifeline. Technically, it’s an enclosure, but it is around eight thousand hectares, so it’s big enough for them to barely notice the fence. There are five cheetahs with GPS collars in here, and a few wild ones. There are also caracals, jackals, hyenas, and a lot of game animals, but we don’t keep track of those. The animals in here are not fed by us, but hunt for themselves. This is a step in their way towards a permanent release in the wild.”  
   That sounded like a way that could actually work. Kurt had been wondering a little as he met the cheetahs at the farm, how something so tame and used to be fed would ever survive in the wild. The Lifeline sounded… well, it sounded like a lifeline.  
   They cuddled a bit with Pride, whom, even though she was technically living almost like if she was wild now, still very much enjoyed the attention. As Kurt took his water bottle, she was there, trying to get a sip too. He poured some of the water in his hand, and she drank from it, until he had emptied the bottle completely. Her tongue felt like sandpaper against his skin. When she was done, she looked at him, her amber eyes meeting his blue, before heading back to the shade under the tree. It wasn’t until Lilly showed him a picture she’d taken of them that he realized he had just had a cheetah drink from his hand.  
   For Kurt, the bush looked exactly the same everywhere, but apparently Quinn could navigate through it, because as they headed back, they came out to the road right next to the car. Amanda and Joseph got up on the roof, and Kurt was lucky enough to get to sit in the front. He’d already had enough of the cages in the back of the cars. The lack of seats and the bumpy roads made the rides very uncomfortable.  
   “How long have you been working here?” Kurt asked Quinn, as she started the car. She seemed so confident in the bush and around the cheetahs, it was impossible to think that she had grown up in the US.  
   “About three years”, Quinn said, and the car coughed a few times before it started. “I was at another place like this for six months first, but they had to close down, so I ended up here."  
   “Isn’t it hard, though?” Kurt asked. “I mean, we’re practically in the middle of nowhere. No shops, no other people, pretty bad wifi… and you work seven days a week, do you ever get out of this place?”  
   “We have a couple days or weeks off once in a while”, Quinn said. “But otherwise… no, not really. It’s okay, though. It's tough, sometimes, but I love it here. Harnas is my home."  
   “But don’t you ever want to meet new people? I mean, you’re around the same group every single day.”  
   “There are new volunteers every week", she reminded him, "it’s only the staff that’s not changing. And we are a good team now, we work well together. I love all of them.”  
   "One person in particular, huh?" Kurt tried to sound teasing, but in reality, he was almost nervous, and not just because he felt like he was a bit out of line. But he needed to know.  
   "What do you mean?" Quinn said, alarm badly hidden in her voice.  
   "Oh, sorry", Kurt said. "It's just, I saw you and Blaine together yesterday, and you looked so..."  
   Quinn burst out laughing.  
   “Blaine? No, not at all.” Kurt breathed out. “He’s my best friend, but there has never been anything romantic going on between us, trust me. I'm not his type.”  
   Kurt's insides, for some reason, sighed with relief.  
   “Were you here when he was here a volunteer?”  
   “We arrived the same week”, she said. “I spent a lot of time with the volunteers in the beginning, and Blaine and I were friends from the start.”  
   Their conversation was interrupted by loud knocks on the roof. Quinn stopped the car, and stuck her head out the window.  
   “We have signal on Max and Mauritz!” Amanda called happily.  
   Quinn smiled, and opened the door.  
   “Looks like we are lucky today."

### Sunday, second week

"So while the little guys are out, we're going to improve their enclosure a little bit", Blaine explained. "There are some big branches over there, and a few tires, I'm thinking we can build something out of them, not sure what. And then there is some other stuff we can use, half a barrel, a big blanket, a broken ladder... I'm not sure what we'll make of it, but I'm sure we'll figure something out. Let's turn this place into a playground! "  
   They entered the empty baboon enclosure, and looked around a little. No one said anything at first, and then one of the volunteers suggested a tire swing. As she and another girl got started on that, more and more ideas started coming. Kurt begun with the blanket, tying it underneath the roof to form a kind of hammock. Blaine started with the barrel, and was digging down the last part of it so that the baboons could use it as a tunnel when he heard Kurt speak behind him.  
   "I'm thinking..." he said, "do you think we can turn that into a ropeway?"  
   Blaine looked at the pile of stuff Kurt was looking at, and a grin started to spread on his face.  
   "God, they would love that", he said. "I don't know if it will work, they will probably have to get a running start to make it slide, but I think we should try."  
   "If they can't do it on their own, at least they can play with it when there are people in here", Kurt agreed.  
   They got the material, and after some heavy work, the ropeway turned out pretty nicely. When they were finished, all the equipment were part of the enclosure, and Blaine looked around.  
   "It looks good", he said. "Great, even. I think they will like it!"  
   "Wait!" Kurt suddenly said. "Is there a file anywhere? The edges on the ladder looks a bit sharp, we don't want any baboons hurting themselves on that thing."  
   "Good thinking", Blaine said. "Here." He handed one to Kurt, who, with a bit of persistence, managed to effectively soften the edges. The timing was excellent, because just as he exited the enclosure, a group of volunteers showed up with the baby baboons.  
   The babies were a little bit tentative at first, looking around the enclosure and barely daring to touch the new toys, but when Vlooi started to chase Bella, the scariness was forgotten. They jumped on the barrel, ran across the ladder hanging from the roof, slid down on a branch and jumped from the tire swing to the ropeway. When they realised that the tire on the ropeway could move, they tried again. And again.    The volunteers outside laughed. Blaine joined them. It had been pretty hard work, but seeing the baboons playing like that made it all worth it.

### Monday, second week

As soon as Kurt, Angelica and Leah had packed the animal food, they connected the trailer to the open jeep that was the tour car, and went to pick up guests. There were four of them, a family from Germany. They were going on a morning tour, which was supposed to be one of the best experiences as a volunteer, and Kurt was excited.  
   The German kids weren’t old enough to know English, but Nadav seemed to know a few sentences in German and the parents translated too. At least Kurt thought that was what they did, he didn’t understand a word. They drove away, while Nadav told them the story about Harnas. Kurt hadn’t heard much of it before, it was nice to finally get to hear how Harnas had become what it had.  
   They reached the ostrich enclosure, and Leah got out to open the gate. The ostriches surrounded her immediately, and Nadav had to run the engine of the car to scare them away from the mieliepap buckets.    When Nadav had told the guests all they wanted to know about the big birds, and let the guests hand feed them with corn, they drove on. Feeding the baboons was the next adventure.  
   “Stand on the trailer and just throw the mieliepap over the fence”, Nadav said. “I want the buckets to be empty before we reach that tree, okay?”  
   They climbed up, and grabbed the railing tightly as the car started driving. The mieliepap was moist and porridge-like, and the wobbly trailer didn’t make it easier to throw it. A lot of it ended up on the ground, and on the volunteers. Kurt had it all over his shirt within minutes, and he was pretty sure there was some in his hair too. But they managed to empty the buckets the second before they reached the tree, and high fived each other’s messy hands, all three of them laughing. The laughter died quick.  
   “Nobody filled up the water tank?” Nadav asked, when the tap didn’t seem to work. They shook their heads.  
   “It’s okay, you’ll be dirty again in a moment anyway”, he said. “Just rub them with some sand, it will dry.”  
   They passed by lions, leopards and caracals, and made short stops for feeding (the lions got half a donkey head each) and questions by each enclosure. And then they reached the enclosure of the wild dog pack.    As soon as the trailer showed up, they started running along the fence, jumping over each other and making noises that were a mix of beeps, chirps and grates and almost deafening.  
   The wild dogs were fed intestines, buckets and buckets that had to be thrown from a platform, piece by piece. Kurt couldn’t identify most of them and he didn’t really want to either. He just gritted his teeth and tried not to let the smell bother him. The dogs fought hard for the pieces, ripping them apart, and the sound almost made him sick.  
   Fortunately, there was only one enclosure with wild dogs, and throwing the pieces of meat to the wild cheetahs was a much more pleasant experience. Kurt was a little bit surprised to find that, intestines and donkey heads included, it had been a really nice morning.

### Tuesday, second week

Blaine left the leopard enclosure and was just about to go to his room when he heard it. Soft notes, quiet but strong, and breathtakingly beautiful.  
   “♪ _Blackbird singing in the dead of night_  
 _Take these broken wings, and learn to fly_ ♫”  
   He stopped, not wanting to disturb whoever was singing, but at the same time desperate to find out who it was that could sound like that. He stepped off the path, on the grass, and took a few silent steps forwards, hiding behind a cactus.  
   It came from Audrey’s enclosure, he realized, and just like that, he knew who was singing. Another few steps, and there was a big tree. Blaine peeked around it.  
   Kurt was sitting on the bench with his feet on it, his back leaned against the fence and his knees up. Audrey was lying against his stomach, her arms around his waist and her eyes closed, probably asleep. The slowly setting sun through the bamboo made Kurt’s chestnut hair shine. He didn’t stop singing, and Blaine couldn't stop listening.  
   He felt a bit like an intruder, especially when he saw Kurt's face. Silent tears were streaming down his cheeks, and the puffiness of his eyes told Blaine that he had probably been crying for a while. The reasonable part of Blaine told him to ask what was wrong, or at least walk away, but he did neither. He just stood there, watching Kurt, unable to look away. He didn’t even know what to feel, his heart was aching for the boy, but still there was something about the scene that felt so right, like he’d finally found something he had been looking for forever.  
   As Kurt stood up to leave, Blaine sneaked away. He spent the next hour sitting in his room, staring into a wall and feeling utterly lost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there you have it. Finally, finally, Blaine is starting to see that maybe Kurt is more than just the grumpy facade. The next chapter is probably one of my favorites, I can't wait for you to read it. Let me know what you thought of this one! :)


	6. Chapter 6

### Wednesday, second week

It was Lapa Night. Again. Kurt couldn’t believe how fast the time was passing. He’d been at Harnas two weeks already, and only had one to go. In just a week, it would be his last night here. In eight days, he would have his things packed up, and be on the plane back to New York. Back to hot showers, reliable wifi, and a Starbucks around every corner. Back to the everyday routines and the job that he hated. Far away from everything that had started to mean more and more to him in the last weeks.  
   He had promised himself to enjoy his last few days, but it was getting difficult already. He wasn’t done here. There was still too many things he wanted to do, too many animals he wanted to spend more time with. And even more importantly, too many people he wanted to get to know better, himself being on top of the list.  
   It wasn’t late, probably not even past eight thirty, but Kurt was exhausted. The (pretty bad) music and the people chatting everywhere were starting to get on his nerves, and honestly, he just wanted to go to bed. He knew, though, that he wasn’t allowed to walk the half mile back to his cabin in the dark alone because of the snakes or the hyenas or whatever, and he didn’t want to ask anyone to go with him. Tina was up dancing with a group of volunteers, looking like she had loads of fun. After all, it was Lapa Night. It was supposed to be the best evening of the week.  
   When Kurt saw three girls, whom were all going to leave the following morning, crying with their arms around each other, he couldn’t take it anymore. He stood up, managed to get through the group of smokers right outside the door without pushing anyone too hard, and headed out in the dark. He lit the flashlight app on his phone, silently thanking Tina again for making him download it. He didn’t go far, just far enough to get away from at least some of the music, and all of the people. In the middle of the lawn, he stopped and sat down on the grass, turning the flashlight off and closing his eyes for a moment. As the cold night air gently swept his face, he started to relax.

Blaine saw Kurt push his way through the volunteers right outside the Lapa. After seeing him with Audrey yesterday, Blaine had kept an eye on him, and he didn’t seem to be doing too well. So as the little spot of light on the lawn disappeared, Blaine decided to follow. He just wanted to make sure Kurt was okay.  
   “Hey”, he said softly, as he sat down next to Kurt. Kurt jumped, apparently startled. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”  
   “What are you doing here?” Kurt’s voice was harsh.  
   “Are you okay?”, Blaine asked, not letting the tone get to him.  
   “I’m fine”, Kurt snapped. “I just wanted some time. Alone.”  
   “I saw you with Audrey yesterday.” Blaine had actually meant to leave, but the words just slipped out. “You didn’t look very fine to me.”  
   Kurt was silent. Blaine considered walking away again, but decided against it. His eyes had gotten accustomed to the darkness now. There was something about the way Kurt was sitting, his knees against his chest, his shoulders forwards. He looked broken. Blaine didn’t want to leave him like that. So he sat there in the silence, too, just hoping that Kurt would open up to him, or at least say something. And at last, he did.  
   “What was it like the first time you left Harnas?”  
   Oh. So that was what this was about. Blaine should have guessed, he’d seen almost a thousand volunteers and most of them didn’t want to leave Harnas when their time came. He knew at least a hundred lies that would make it easier for Kurt. He settled for the truth.  
   “It was awful.”  
   Kurt turned to him, and Blaine could see the tears starting to shine in his eyes. As he spoke, his voice was thick.  
   “So how did you do it? How can you just go home from a place like this, and be expected to go back and live a normal life again?”  
   “You can’t.” Blaine looked Kurt straight in the eyes now, feeling a bit guilty for making this even harder, but also knowing that Kurt already knew this. “When you go back home, you will have all these stories and all these pictures, and people will ask you to tell them all about it, and they will be really excited about this big adventure you've been on. But after a week, maybe two, the excitement will calm down, and they will expect you to go on with your life as you did before. And you won’t be able to, not in the same way. What you’ve experienced here will always be there. There will be things, the way the sun breaks between the leaves on a tree on an early morning, the smell of your roommates perfume on a person on the street, a paw print in the snow that looks too much like a cheetah's, or just the taste of bad instant coffee."  
   Kurt smiled weakly, and Blaine continued.  
   "They will bring you back here, just for a second, and flood you with memories. Hopefully, they will make you smile. But you will never be the same."  
   “So what do you do?”  
   “I think I’m the wrong person to answer that question.” When Kurt raised an eyebrow, Blaine added: “Why do you think I came back? I couldn’t cope with being home. After my first time, I spent every single day just working my ass off, hating every minute of it, just to get a chance to go back here. After my second time, I got depressed. Some days, I couldn’t even drag myself out of bed. It was my parents who sent me back that time, as a guest, at first, hoping that it would make me feel better. When I was offered a job here, I was so lucky. Because I honestly don’t know what I would have done otherwise.”  
   Blaine took a deep breath, not really sure why he had just said that. It wasn’t something he talked about very often. Or ever. When he looked at Kurt again, Kurt’s eyes were full of concern.  
   “It’s okay”, Blaine hurried to say. “I’m fine. I'm living my dream now. It took a while, and it's still hard sometimes, but I am fine.”  
   “So what you are basically saying is that I am going to go home next week and feel depressed for the rest of my life, if I can’t figure out a way to come back here?”  
   “Oh, Kurt.”Blaine shook his head, and put a warm hand on Kurt's arm. He was a little surprised when Kurt didn't shake it off. “God no, that was not what I meant. Volunteers do it all the time. Some of them come back here after a year or two, but most see it as a once in a lifetime thing, and are just happy to have been here. It’ll probably be a bit difficult in the beginning, but you’ll be okay.”  
   “I guess I’m just not ready to go home yet”, Kurt said. “I don’t feel like I am done here.”  
   “So why don’t you extend?”  
   “Extend?” For a second, Kurt looked so happy, Blaine could swear his smile lit up the grass around them. “I can do that?”  
   “Sure. You'll have to pay for the extra week, of course, but as long as you can afford that..."  
   "That won't be an issue", Kurt said quickly. "I've been working sixty hours a week, remember?"  
   "Great", Blaine smiled. "Just speak to Emma, Will’s wife, in the office, and she’ll help you sort things out. You have to rebook your flights and stuff, and make sure your visa is still valid, but as long as it is, there shouldn’t be any problems.”  
   The way Kurt beamed made Blaine’s heart flutter. 

“From where in the US are you, anyway?” Kurt’s Lapa Night had progressed in an entirely unexpected, but not at all unpleasant way. When he’d first sat down on the lawn, he hadn’t known that he wanted to talk to someone, but Blaine had really made him feel better.  
   “I’m from Westerville, Ohio.” Blaine’s voice was filled with sarcastic pride, and his facial expression made it clear what he thought about the place. Kurt just stared.  
   “Seriously? I’m from Lima! That’s like, not even two hours away.”  
   “It’s a small world.” Blaine chuckled. “Do you still live there?”  
   “Oh, god no”, Kurt laughed. “I got out of there as soon as I possibly could. I live in New York now.”  
   “Ah, that explains a lot”, Blaine teased. Kurt punched his arm lightly.  
   “Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?”  
   “Nothing, nothing at all”, Blaine laughed. “Just that, when you first came, you acted a lot like a city guy.”  
   “Oh, yeah.” Kurt blushed. “I’m sorry about that, it’s just… it took some time to get used to everything, that’s all.”  
   “Can I ask you something?” Blaine sounded sincere in a way that almost made Kurt nervous.  
   “Sure?”  
   “Don’t take this the wrong way, but… why did you come here?”  
   “Well…” Kurt didn’t really know where to begin. “Actually, I never really chose this. It was my dad who thought I needed to get a break from everything.”  
   “Everything what?” Blaine asked. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, curiosity is just a bad habit of mine. You don’t have to tell me.”  
   “It’s okay”, Kurt said. “The last year… The last year has been pretty rough. I graduated high school in June, and had applied for New York Academy of Dramatic Arts. My best friend got in – I didn’t.”  
   “Seriously?” Blaine looked as if Kurt had said he’d been to the moon. “With your voice? They must be crazy not to accept you!” He fell silent. “Sorry, go on.”  
   “Well, we moved to New York, both of us, sharing an apartment”, Kurt said. “I found a job, just a temporary one, I thought, at a combined diner and bar, as a waiter slash bartender. I reapplied for NYADA for spring term, but I didn’t make it. So I’m stuck in this diner, my boss is an ass, and I still take extra shifts whenever I can because I can’t stand being home when Rachel is. I am happy for her, I really am, but she just got her first Broadway role and she is top of her classes at NYADA, she has everything I ever dreamed of and I can’t seem to get out of this lousy diner. I guess my dad realized I wasn’t doing very well even though I never said anything about it, so when Tina started talking about this place, he told me to go with her. He didn’t force me or anything, but he kind of convinced me that it would be a good idea, and we'd booked before I’d quite understood what it was all about. This whole living-in-cabins and no-hot-showers and dirty-twenty-four-seven-thing isn’t usually my thing.”  
   “Well, you made that pretty clear”, Blaine said, still mocking.  
   “Hey, I wasn’t that bad!” Kurt said. Blaine raised an eyebrow. “Okay, I was. I'm sorry about that, by the way.”  
   “Do you regret it?” Blaine asked. “Coming here, I mean?”  
   “Not at all”, Kurt said. “It’s given me a new… perspective. Do you?”  
   “Not in a second”, Blaine said without hesitation. “I never have. But sometimes I wonder where I would have been otherwise.”  
   “What were you thinking of doing?” Kurt asked. “Before you ever got here, I mean. You must have had some kind of plan?”  
   “I did”, Blaine said. “And I tried them out, after I got home from here my first time.”  
   “I thought you said you worked all the time?”  
   “Well, yeah, after a while”, Blaine said. “When I came home from here, I was inspired. I believed I could do so much, I’d done so much down here that I never thought I would do, and it made me feel kind of invincible. I’d been accepted to NYU, so I moved to New York, and started studying. Music and literature, double major, all I’d wanted since middle school. The problem was… well, it didn’t feel important anymore. Why would I be in New York, attending classes and writing papers, when I could be here and make an actual difference? So I dropped out after three weeks, found a job in a coffee shop, and worked until I could afford to go back.”  
   “And now you're going to live the rest of your life in Namibia?” To Kurt, it sounded kind of drastic, but he kind of could see the appeal.  
   “Well, it’s a bit more complicated than that”, Blaine said. “If I could choose completely, I think I would love to. But since my mere existence is illegal in this country, it's not really an option.”  
   “Illegal?” Kurt was confused. “How could existence be illegal?”  
   “I’m gay.” Kurt’s heart skipped a beat. “And homosexuality is illegal in Namibia, so having a future here would be kind of hard.”  
   “Oh. I didn’t know.”  
   “Well, not many around here know”, Blaine admitted. “It’s not something I shout from the rooftops, it would be kind of stupid.”  
   “No, I meant about the law”, Kurt clarified. “I guess I should have looked that up before I went here, it could have been good to know.”  
   “You’re…?”  
   “I’m gay, too, yes”, Kurt answered. “Which most people assume, whether I tell them or not. I’d hate to hide it, though, it wouldn’t feel right.”  
   “They are not very strict about it here”, Blaine said. “Like, they usually don’t put people in jail and stuff, even though they technically could. But relationships aren’t legally recognized. I don’t lie about it if anyone asks. But I don’t walk around telling people unless it’s relevant.”  
   “And it was now?”  
   “Well, you asked about the future”, Blaine said, possibly a little bit too quickly. Kurt nodded.  
   “Sure.”  
   They sat in silence for a few minutes. Then Blaine stood up.  
   “What do you say, should we get back in before people start looking for us?”  
   “I guess we should.” Kurt took Blaine’s out-stretched hand and was pulled to his feet. When Blaine released him, it felt much too soon. “Oh, and Blaine?”  
   “Yeah?”  
   “Thanks. For cheering me up.”  
   Blaine smiled.  
   “Anytime.”

“Hey, where’ve you been?” Quinn found Blaine as soon as he entered the Lapa. “I’ve been looking for you!”  
   “I’ve just been… out. Why have you been looking for me? Did something happen?”  
   “I guess you could say that…” Quinn’s eyes sparkles mischievously. “But first, tell me where you’ve been!”  
   “I said, I’ve been out!” Blaine was curious. “What happened?”  
   “Just out?” Quinn looked at him, and Blaine realized he probably wouldn’t get to know more before he’d told her. For some reason, he felt defensive, he didn’t want to tell her about his night. It felt private. He’d only been talking to Kurt, but it had been a great conversation. Finally, he felt like they had shared something. There was more of a mutual understanding now.  
   “Well, there was a volunteer who needed a pep talk.” Hopefully, she would settle for that explanation.  
   “For three hours? Come on, Blaine.”Apparently not.  
   “I kind of might have failed the whole pep part in the beginning”, Blaine said. “But it’s fine, I’ve handled it now. He’s all right.”  
   “Kurt?” Quinn looked sympathetic. “Is he okay? Are you okay?”  
   Blaine looked across the lapa, to where Kurt was talking to Tina about something.  
   “He is fine. We’re fine. Now, what was it that you were going to tell me?"

“Hey, where’ve you been?” Tina was next to Kurt the second he came through the door. “I thought you had left!”  
   “No, I’ve been… out.” Kurt didn’t really know what to say. “I needed some air.”  
   “In case you haven’t noticed, there is no roof here”, Tina said. “There’s plenty of air. Come on, it’s been hours!”  
   Kurt checked his phone. Almost eleven. Where had the time gone?  
   “Well, okay, I needed some time alone, then.”  
   “So where’ve you been?”  
   “On the lawn.”  
   Tina just looked at him. “You’ve been sitting on the lawn – alone – for three hours?”  
   “Well, I got company”, Kurt said. “Blaine showed up, and we started talking.”  
   Tina gave him a look.  
   “No, seriously, we were talking!”  
   “Whatever you say”, she said, and he shook his head. Yes, he might have spoken a bit about Blaine in the past days, but that didn’t mean there was anything actually going on. And Blaine was staff, it wasn’t like there could be anything between them even if he – if either of them – wanted to.  
   “What would you say if I decided to stay another week”, Kurt said, changing subject.  
   Tina squealed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, there you have the backstory. So now we know, and more importantly, Blaine knows, what brought Kurt halfway across the world to about the most unlikely place for him to be. I hope you liked this chapter as much as I do, and I'd love to hear what you think!


	7. Chapter 7

### Thursday, third week

“Hey, kiddo, how are you doing?!”  
   “Hi dad.” Kurt waved to Burt's smiling face on the screen. “I’m fine, everything’s fine.”  
   “I can’t wait to have you home next week, you’ll have to tell me all about it.”  
   “Well, about that…” There was no reason to delay it. “I will not be coming home next week.”  
   “And where, may I ask, are you going instead?” Burt looked a bit confused, and Kurt couldn’t blame him. He hadn’t really been kicking and screaming on his way to the airport, but he sure hadn’t been excited.  
   “I’m thinking about extending another week, and leave with Tina.”  
   “I take it you are having a good time?” Burt asked.  
   “I’m having a great time”, Kurt said. “It’s like you said, I think it was good for me.”  
   “I’m glad to hear that.” Burt smiled again, and Kurt suddenly missed his father. “How is Tina doing?”  
   “She is doing great. She loves it here, just as much as she thought she would.”  
   “And you? Apart from two emails, I haven’t heard from you at all. It’s not how you’d expected?”  
   “Uhm… Yesterday I fed two leopards with half a donkey heart each and spent my afternoon singing for a monkey. I’ve also been tracking cheetahs, taking baby baboons for a walk and cleaning waterholes, among other things.” Kurt didn’t really try to make it sound less absurd, there was simply no point.“So no, not really.”  
   “That sounds…” Burt didn’t finish the sentence. “It doesn’t really sound like you.”  
   “Believe me, I know”, Kurt said. “I spent my entire first week thinking of ways to get away from here. Now I’ve spent my second week trying to figure out a way to stay.”  
   “And now you have.”  
   “Well, yeah. Blaine told me I could extend.”  
   “Blaine?”  
   “He is one of the volunteer coordinators, we were talking a bit yesterday and he said I should just talk to the office, and they would help me sort it out. Actually, I should do that right now, we have a meeting soon.”  
   “You go do that”, Burt smiled. “And Kurt? I’m glad to see that you’re okay.”  
   “I really am, dad. Bye, love you!” Kurt ended the call, put his iPad in its case and left the laundry area. For some reason, that was where the WiFi worked best, so that was where he’d been sitting. In the morning, everything had been chaotic with goodbyes again, so he hadn’t had time to talk with Emma about extending, but now he headed towards the office.  
   Even though it was kind of impossible to stay neat while working with animals, Kurt would say he was probably one of the cleanest volunteers. But as he stepped into the office, he felt like a slob. It was light and open, with a lot of windows, and Kurt couldn’t see the tiniest bit of mud or dust anywhere whatsoever. After two weeks at Harnas, where you stepped right out from the showers to the sand, and never actually became even remotely clean, this felt almost surreal. How on earth did anyone manage this, here?  
   “Please leave your shoes outside”, a voice said, and in the corner, by a computer, sat a red-haired woman who Kurt guessed to be Emma.  
   “Oh, sorry” he said, and removed his sandals. Not that it did much good, his feet were just as filthy. “I just wanted to ask… would it be possible for me to extend my stay for another week?”  
   Fifteen minutes later, it was all settled, and Kurt hurried to breakfast. He found Tina and the others sitting at a corner table, they had already eaten. The yoghurt was out, but there was still oatmeal and bananas left, so Kurt grabbed a plate. And then, he almost squealed.  
   There, at the end of the bar-acting-as-a-buffet-table, was coffee. The bad instant coffee that Blaine had mentioned, but coffee none the less. He could smell it as he walked to the table, and the first gulp was like liquid happiness. It didn’t even matter that it was probably the worst coffee he’d ever tasted. It was wonderful.

### Friday, third week

“Blaine Blaine! Finn Finn! Nadav Nadav! Alex Alex! Quinn Quinn!”  
   _Fuck_. Calling all the coordinators on the radio usually meant something was wrong. Really wrong.  
   “I stand by”, Blaine answered, and in seconds, the rest of the staff was listening too. They all knew it had to be serious.  
   “We have a cheetah in the wild dog enclosure. I need everyone, as soon as possible.”  
   “We’ll be there” Blaine turned to the volunteers in the back of the car.  
   “Sorry guys, but the lions will have to wait. Hold on!” He made a U-turn on the road, trying not to get too far off it as he did so. Then he hurried back to the farm, probably a little faster than the single file sand track was made for.  
   As he reached the car park, there were already almost sixty volunteers and staff members standing there. When Blaine looked around, he realized they would have to fit in three cars. It wasn’t as difficult as it sounded, at least ten people could fit on the rooftops if they held on tightly, and another ten could probably squeeze in the back. It wouldn’t be comfortable, but no one complained. In less than five minutes, the cars were filled, and they drove off.  
   Since it was Friday morning, all the volunteers had been there for at least a week, and Will just gave a short reminder on how to treat the wild dogs before they entered. Spreading out like one long line along the fence, about three meters apart, they started walking through the bushes. Blaine had Kurt on one side, a newbie named Mina on the other. He tried keeping the line straight, but it was almost impossible. There was some shrubs you just couldn’t walk through. An especially big one forced him to go almost all the way over to Kurt to get around it.  
   “Blaine?”  
   “Yeah?” Blaine had to turn around to see Kurt, who had fallen behind.  
   “I’m stuck in this stupid tree, could you help me?”  
   “Sure.” Blaine walked over there, and with gentle fingers he untangled the thorns from Kurt’s shirt. “I can’t do much about the holes, though…”  
   Kurt groaned.  
   “Again?”  
   Blaine nodded.  
   “We should try to catch up”, he said, started walking again. He couldn’t even see Mina, or whoever was supposed to be on Kurt’s right side. “If there is gaps in the line, the cheetah might slip through.”  
   “I…” Kurt suddenly froze. “I think it already has.”  
   Blaine spun around. There, maybe thirty feet away, it stood. Eyes narrow, ears flat back, and mouth twisted in a snarl, fangs clearly visible. The hand-raised cheetahs on the farm was one thing, this was something else. This one was wild. And angry.  
   “Stay still, don’t move.” Blaine positioned himself between Kurt and the cheetah, just hoping that no one else would come bursting through the bush right now. He wasn’t scared, he knew how to handle the cheetah, but he also knew that Kurt didn’t. And the cheetah was clearly stressed, its behavior might be irrational. That was the dangerous part. The cheetah wouldn’t kill them, but bites and scratches wasn’t something he wanted to risk, either.  
   “Hey!” he said loudly, taking one step in the cheetah’s direction. It slapped both its front paws against the ground, and growled. He took another step forwards. The cheetah looked at him. Blaine didn’t turn his gaze away, staring it down as he kept walking towards it. A cheetah didn’t rely on strength, it relied on speed to catch it’s pray, and in the face of something stronger, it would back off. Blaine would just have to show that he was the stronger one. He took yet another step, refusing to let the spitting and hissing get to him. The cheetah stared him straight in the eye. But after another step, when he was just a couple of feet from it, it's gaze flickered. Suddenly it twisted, and in just a second, it was gone.  
   “Will Will!” Blaine called on the radio.  
   “I stand by?”  
   “We’ll have to start over, the cheetah got through.” He didn’t need to say more, he knew Will would get everyone back and redo it all. Now, his main priority was Kurt.  
   He still hadn’t moved.  
   “Are you okay?” Blaine’s voice was soft.  
   Kurt blinked a few times.  
   “I think so”, he said. “It was just a bit of a shock. I mean, the cheetahs at the farm…”  
   “There is a big difference”, Blaine said. “They are used to humans, hand raised. This one is one of the wild ones. As you saw, they are not dangerous if you know how to handle them, but I think that was something Will might have forgotten to explain.”  
   “It might have been good if he had mentioned that, yes.” There was a weak smile on Kurt's face now, at least. “Why was it so aggressive?”  
   “It was just stressed”, Blaine explained. “It is lost in an enclosure it doesn’t know, with sixty people and twenty wild dogs chasing it. But if we don’t get it back in its right enclosure, the wild dog pack could easily kill it.”  
   “I guess we should go back and join the search, then?”  
   “I guess we should.”

### Saturday, third week

Kurt spent the morning doing foodprep. The group of newbies who had arrived the night before was on introduction with Will, and would start learning everything in the afternoon, but until then, they were a few people short. Angelica, Kurt and Maja had managed to cut the things pretty quickly, and had now split up to do the feeding and cleaning. Kurt was off to feed the meerkats.  
   He climbed the concrete wall and entered the enclosure without stepping on any tails. The cut tire that acted as a food bowl was cleaned out easily, a little scrubbing with a brush to get the dried-out egg off, and then he filled it up. With small little chirps, the meerkats were all over it in seconds. That gave Kurt the chance to refill the holes they had dug overnight, rake the enclosure and throw the trash in a bag. After a hissing fight with a goose – seriously, who knew geese could hiss? – he got the hosepipe, filled up the waterhole, and then he was done. He grabbed the things, and almost stumbled over the baby lambs as he headed back towards the foodprep area.  
   It really was a hot day, after about half an hour in the sun, his skin was burning. In the foodprep area, Hounddogs were still cutting meat, and Quinn was looking over the food from Owls. After a quick check on the Snoobabs table, he saw that Angelica and Maja must be feeding the baboons, so he grabbed the neat plate with small piles of vegetables to go and feed Audrey. He didn't get far.  
His back was hit by something cold and wet, and he spun around to find Blaine sitting on the edge of one of the bathtubs, with a smile on his face and a hose in his hand.  
   "Hey, what did you do that for?!"  
   "You looked hot, I thought I'd cool you down a bit". Kurt did not analyze the double meaning in those words. Or well, at least he tried not to.  
   “Don’t you have anywhere to be?” he asked instead.  
   “Sure”, Blaine answered. “Where are we going?”  
   Kurt just laughed.  
   “You’re impossible.”

Blaine knew he shouldn’t do it. He knew it was stupid, he knew it was mean, but the way it brought that smile to Kurt’s face… he just couldn’t help it. It felt way too good.  
   He was aware that Kurt had a crush on him. He didn’t know when it had started, and he wasn’t really sure when he had figured it out either, or if Kurt was aware of it himself, but Blaine knew it was there. And he wasn’t stupid enough to believe that what he himself was feeling was nothing, either. There was something, an attraction, an excitement, something that made him feel better than he had done in a long time. He knew he couldn’t act on it, relationships between the staff and the volunteers were strictly forbidden, but even though he knew, he couldn’t help himself. It was so easy to flirt a little with Kurt, it made him look flustered in a way that Blaine found oh so endearing. And if it happened to make Blaine feel good, too, then what was wrong? It wasn’t hurting anyone. It made Kurt smile. Blaine would do anything, anytime, to get to see that smile.  
   And Kurt knew that there couldn’t actually become something between them. It wasn’t like Blaine was leading him on or anything, they both knew the rules. This was just a two-week thing, a little extra attention to make them both feel good. Kurt knew that too. Right?  
Yet, if he could choose… Blaine wasn’t sure he wanted it to be just a two-week thing. If they had met during different circumstances, like in high school back in Ohio, for example, Blaine felt sure they would have fallen in love. Been boyfriends, graduated, maybe even moved to New York together. But a relationship here would probably get him fired. It was also illegal. And most of all, their days were already running out, and they would be an ocean apart in less than two weeks. Falling harder now would be like setting himself up for a broken heart.  
   So as Kurt jumped up and grabbed the ball just above Blaine’s head that afternoon during the fetchball game, Blaine did not think about how much he wanted to kiss that jawline. As they wrestled on the grass, he did not notice the way their bodies were pressed together, the way he was straddling Kurt as they fought for the rugby ball. He did not feel Kurt’s the warmth from hands on his chest, as Kurt tried to push him away, trying to free the ball for his team. He did not hold Kurt down, just for an extra second, after the ball had reached one of Kurt’s team members.  
   Or maybe he did, just a little bit.

### Sunday, third week

“I did it!”  
   Tina came running straight towards Kurt, who was sitting with Audrey again. The monkey jumped, frightened by the sudden noise, and hid in her house.  
   “You did what?” Kurt hadn’t seen her this excited since… well, probably since yesterday, when she had been on her first morning tour.  
   “I got us signed up for the Atheno sleepout!”  
   “You did?” Kurt was exiting the enclosure now, locking it before hugging Tina. “That’s amazing, I thought every night was full until we left?”  
   “Well, they were, but Hayley and Julia were supposed to do it tonight, and Julia doesn’t feel good. They have both already done it once, though, so they were okay with it.”  
   “Tonight?” Now Kurt was getting excited too. They had been talking about trying to do a sleepout for over a week now, but every single night had been occupied already. It was supposed to be an amazing experience.  
   “We’re leaving right after dinner”, Tina said. “I checked the weather, it’s going to be a little cold, but otherwise fine.”  
  
_A little cold_ was an understatement. Kurt was wearing almost every garment he had brought, and he was still freezing as they walked back towards the farm. It was a beautiful night, though. The sun had just set, streaks of orange still rested above the horizon. Only a few bright stars were visible so far, but the lack of clouds showed promise of more. Kurt hummed softly as they walked.  
_“♪The sun goes down, the stars come out_  
_And all that counts is here and now_  
_My universe will never be the same♫_ ”  
   Tina turned to him with a smile.  
   “I’m glad you came”, she said. Kurt smiled back.  
   “So am I.”  
   They grabbed mattresses and sleeping bags in the volunteer room, and headed through the enclosure of the three cheetahs, to reach Atheno, the younger cheetah in the back. It was a lot of stuff to carry, and it was starting to get really dark. Kurt was glad Tina had a head torch, because he had no hand left to hold the flashlight in.  
   The cheetah was waiting for them at the gate when they arrived, and they did as they had been told; got in their sleeping bags while still standing up and holding the mattresses. When they put them down, Kurt understood why. If he hadn’t been so fast to lie down, Atheno would have taken up all the space. Now the cheetah had to settle down in between them, walking around in circles a few times before lying down. Kurt tensed a little, not really wanted to get stepped on. Atheno hadn’t stopped purring since he first saw them, and when he lay down on his side, his back against Tina and his paws towards Kurt, Kurt could finally breathe out a little. After his encounter with the wild cheetah yesterday, he was having a little bit more of a hard time relaxing around them than he’d had before. He still was a little uncomfortable having two clawed paws just inches from his face, but seeing how Atheno trusted them, lying down between them without a second of doubt, calmed him down. As long as the cheetah could trust them, he felt like if he could trust the cheetah. As much as he would ever trust a cheetah, anyway.  
   “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Tina said. Kurt couldn’t see her anymore, it was getting too dark.  
   “Amazing.” Kurt looked up at the sky, and the millions of tiny lights spread across it was simply breathtaking. Out here in the darkness, the milky way was clearly visible, like a faded streak from one horizon to another.  
   “There!” Tina managed to scream and whisper at the same time. “A shooting star! Did you see it?”  
   “Make a wish”, Kurt smiled. “I missed it, though…”  
   Tina was silent for a moment.  
   “If you’d seen it, what would you have wished for?”  
   Kurt barely had to think about it.  
   “I think I would have wished for more time.”  
   “Here?” Tina sounded a bit surprised.  
   “Yeah. I guess… I still feel like there is more to this place, like I’m not done yet. There is things I want to do, animals I want to get to know, people…”  
   “…you want to make out with?” Tina finished his sentence.  
   “I didn’t say that!” Kurt was glad the darkness hid his blush.  
   “But you thought it! What is going on there, anyway? With you and Blaine…?”  
   “I don’t know…” Kurt sighed. “Blaine is… he’s been acting a bit flirty the past days, but I can’t tell if that is how he is or if it actually means something.”  
   “He would be risking his job if it did”, Tina commented. As if Kurt didn’t know that already.  
   “It’s not as if there is time for anything to happen anyway”, he said. “We only have a little more than a week left.”  
   “I know.” Tina sounded as sad as Kurt felt. “I would have thought about extending, if I didn’t have a job to get back to.”  
   “Me too. I was just lucky I had an extra week off.”  
   They were quiet for a while, and it wasn’t until then that Kurt noticed that Atheno had stopped purring. He immediately tensed, ready to stand up, before he understood. The cheetah had fallen asleep.  
   “Maybe we should sleep too.” Tina had apparently reached the same conclusion. “We have to get up at five thirty if we want to get back and shower before breakfast.  
   “I guess we should”, Kurt said. He had been unsure if he would be able to fall asleep next to a cheetah, but it didn’t take him many minutes.  
  
Kurt woke up, and for a millisecond, he felt disorientated. Then he saw the silhouette of Atheno, sitting up. Like a black statue against the dark sky, the stars sprinkled in the background, he was entirely still.  
   “Hey, boy”, Kurt breathed, as he sat up. His back felt a little stiff, the thin mattress wasn’t the most comfortable thing he’d slept on in his life. “Hi, sweetie, go back to sleep.”  
   qAtheno looked at him. Kurt scratched him under his chin, and the purring started again. The complete silence around them made it sound even louder. As Kurt lay down again, Atheno followed. He had his back against Kurt’s stomach and pushed a little bit so that he also got some space on the mattress. Kurt could feel the vibration from the purring. Then Atheno put his head on top of Kurt’s, cheek to cheek, and although it made Kurt tense up a little at first, he soon relaxed again. He suddenly understood exactly why people described the sleepout as incredible. Neither he, nor Atheno, moved for the rest of the night.


	8. Chapter 8

### Thursday, fourth week

“It looks like you’ve been riding before?”  
   Kurt stared at Blaine.  
   “Seriously?”  
   “Well, no, not really”, Blaine laughed. “I was just trying to make conversation, you’ve been awfully quiet. Here, hold the reins like this.” He got up close enough to move Kurt’s fingers without dismounting his horse. Kurt’s hands were warm in his.  
   “I’ve actually only been horseback riding twice”, Kurt admitted. “Once on a pony, at a fair, I must have been like five or six years old. The other time was when my dad took me to a dude ranch. I was twelve, my horse got scared by a bird, and I fell off into a mud puddle. My new jeans got ruined. Needless to say, that was the end of my riding career.”  
   “Well, then I'd say it’s about time you gave it another try”, Blaine said. He turned around to look at the others, they seemed to be doing just fine.  
   “Did you know how to ride when you got here?” Kurt asked, and Blaine smiled, because it was the first real attempt to a conversation Kurt had made all day.  
   “Not at all”, he answered. “But Finn took me out a couple times and gave me a few pointers. I’m not that good, but at least I can stay on the horse now.”  
   “Well, you look good up there”, Kurt said. Blaine smirked. “Oh, I mean, you look like… you… you know what I mean.” The blush that was creeping up Kurt’s cheeks was adorable.  
   “I know exactly what you mean”, Blaine teased, and the blush increased. Kurt pretended to look at the springboks grazing in the clearing ahead.  
   “When are you going to tell me what’s bothering you?” Blaine asked, when he got tired of the silence. “Are you okay?”  
   “I’m fine”, Kurt said. “It’s only… well, it’s Thursday again. Already.”  
   “Oh.” Blaine understood. Kurt’s last week was starting today. “You still don’t want to go home, huh?”  
   “Not at all”, Kurt said. “But my job expects me back on Monday next week, I don’t know what they would say if I asked for more time off.”  
   “There’s only one way to find out, right?” Blaine said. “Have you tried calling them?”  
   “Not yet, I haven't dared”, Kurt admitted. “I guess I should, though, if they say yes, it would be so worth it.”  
   “You can borrow the office phone during lunch break”, Blaine said. Kurt nodded.  
   “I will.”  
   They turned up on the airstrip, the big wide runway that stretched across the savannah, from the farm past the village, and at least another two miles. They were pretty far from the stables. Blaine’s horse started tensing up, he knew this was where they usually galloped.  
   “I thought we should let them run a little today”, Blaine said, turned towards the three girls in the back. They all nodded excitedly. Kurt looked a little anxious.  
   “We’ll take it easy”, Blaine promised. “Your horse is so lazy, you’ll probably have a hard time getting her to run at all.”  
   “Okay.” Kurt nodded.  
   Blaine got his horse to start trotting, and then reached a slow gallop. After a little while he gave the horse more and more reins, and the speed gradually increased. From the sound of hooves around him, the other’s seemed to keep up. He quickly glanced backwards.  
   All four horses were galloping, pretty much in a straight line, the smiles equal on the rider’s faces. They seemed to still be in control, which was a good thing. Blaine had just trusted that the horses would stop when his did. He got his horse to decrease the speed, a bit unwillingly, and behind him, the other horses did the same.  
   “You got her to run”, Blaine said, as Kurt rode up next to him.  
   “I had no clue what I was doing”, Kurt said. “She just started running, so I held on and hoped that I would be able to get her to stop.”  
   “You looked good up there, though”, Blaine said, his voice teasing.  
   “Oh, shut up. I looked like I was about to fall off.”  
   Blaine laughed.  
   “Well, you're the one who said it!” 

### Friday, fourth week

“I did it!” Kurt ran the last few steps and must have kind of chocked Blaine when he threw his arms around him. He was too excited to care, though.  
   “What happened?” Blaine asked, as they let go. He tried to ignore the group of people who were currently looking at them.  
   “I called my job! My boss wasn’t happy – actually, I’ll be working all summer – but he gave me two more weeks. Two more weeks, Blaine! I get to stay two more weeks!”  
   “That’s amazing!” Blaine said, and squeezed Kurt’s shoulders. “I’m so happy for you!”  
   “Hey, Kurt!” Kurt spun around and found Angelica a few yards away. “Are you going on the caracal walk?”  
   “Yeah”, Kurt called. “Why?”  
   “Alex said to meet her in the enclosure”, she said. “But she asked me to get the cage from the car park first, will you help me?.”  
   “Sure”, Kurt called back and turned to Blaine again. "I guess I have to go, then."  
   “Have fun”, Blaine smiled. "And Kurt?"  
   "Yeah?"  
   "I'm glad you're staying."

### Saturday, fourth week

“Hey, where do we meet for outside feeding?”  
   Blaine spun around, surprised to hear Kurt talking. “I thought you were going on research?”  
   “I was”, Kurt said, “but I switched with Tina. She has been on outside feeding three times this week.”  
   Blaine couldn’t help wondering, hoping, maybe, that it had something to do with the fact that he was the one doing the outside feeding today.  
   “We’ll meet at the car park in ten minutes”, he answered, pushing the question out of his mind. It didn’t matter what Kurt thought or didn’t think, nothing could happen anyway. “Carly and Mattias are already getting the meat, you could grab some mieliepap.”  
   “Okay”, Kurt said, and disappeared towards the foodprep area. Blaine got the car keys from the notice board in the office, and headed to the car park.  
   There, he was met by a sight that shouldn’t have surprised him as much as it did.  
   Kurt was just exiting the foodprep area, walking rather slowly while carrying two of the 25 liter buckets filled with mieliepap. The white t-shirt he’d been wearing was soaked with something, probably water, and it clung to his chest so that Blaine could clearly see the flexed abs underneath it.  
   “What happened?” Blaine asked, as Kurt put the buckets next to Blaine’s feet with a sigh.  
   “Finn happened.”  
   “Oh.” The explanation was enough. “It’s okay, we’ll get back on him later.”  
   “It’s actually pretty nice, it helps with the heat”, Kurt said. “It’s really hot today.”  
   “Talking about the weather now, are we?” Blaine winked as Kurt blushed. “Although I should ask Finn to hose you down more often, you look good like that.”  
   And while Kurt seemed to search for an answer, Carly and Mattias showed up with the buckets of meat.  
   They loaded up the land rover, and Carly called shotgun, much to Blaine’s disappointment. Kurt and Mattias climbed up on the rooftop, and Blaine drove off.  
   They fed the leopards pretty quickly, and for once, the younger lions showed up when they were called. Then it was only the baboons left, and Blaine stopped the car a few yards from the fence.  
   “Carly and Mattias, take one bucket a bit further up the fence, and we’ll take the other one a bit down”, he directed, and the volunteers did as he said. With the bucket between them, he and Kurt walked about twenty yards, before starting to make balls out of the mieliepap. It was wet, sticky, and still warm from being boiled. Blaine threw one over the fence, and immediately, the closest baboons came running, stuffing their mouths and cheeks with the corn porridge.  
   They had emptied about half the bucket when Kurt looked at Blaine.  
   “You’ve got something there”, he said, and reached out. Then he smeared a line of mieliepap all across Blaine’s forehead.  
   “Hey!” Blaine said, and used his hands to make sure no part of Kurt’s arms were clean. Kurt stroked his hands across Blaine’s chest and t-shirts, leaving nice lines of mieliepap all over it. Blaine held his breath for a second, as Kurt’s fingers lingered on his stomach. Then he grabbed Kurt’s face with both hands, covering his cheeks in the sticky mass. As his fingers run up through Kurt’s hair, Kurt froze, and Blaine wondered if he’d gone too far.  
   Apparently he hadn’t, because a second later Kurt was laughing, dipping his hands in the bucket and dragging them through Blaine’s curls. He knew he was going to have a hell trying to get it all out tonight, but he didn’t care. The way Kurt was laughing was worth it all. Oh, god, Blaine just wanted to kiss those lips.  
   “Hey, are you guys done yet?” It was Carly who brought Blaine back to reality. Blushing, he realized they still had half a bucket left to throw.  
   “Almost”, he called back, and started throwing the mieliepap over the fence again. Kurt did the same. As the bucket was empty, they both grabbed the handle at the same time, making their hands touch. Blaine couldn’t help putting his on Kurt’s and squeeze a little before he let go. Kurt looked at him, and for a few seconds neither of them breathed. Then a baboon shrieked right next to the fence, making Kurt jump, and they both started laughing.

### Sunday, fourth week

”Are you guys going to church?” Kurt, Tina and some others were sitting on the lawn as Blaine walked up to them.  
   “What church?” Kurt looked at the other volunteers, they didn’t seem to have heard of it either.  
   “There is a short service in the chapel down by the village”, Blaine explained to them. “Usually, it’s every other Sunday, but it hasn’t been for a couple weeks now.”  
   “Is it just for the volunteers?” Lisa asked, and Blaine shook his head.  
   “No, it’s anyone who wants to. Volunteers, staff, usually most of the Bushmen from the villages come too. There is a lot of music, singing and dancing, the kids love it.”  
   “It sounds fun!” Tina said. She looked at Kurt, who shrugged.  
   “It’s not really my thing.” He usually tried to avoid churches as much as possible. The talk about god was boring and he just didn’t believe in it.  
   “Come on, you’ll like it, I promise”, Blaine said, and Kurt had to change his mind. How was he supposed to be able to say no to those eyes?  
   “Okay, then. But I’ll hold you to that promise, you know. When is it?”  
   “I’m actually on my way there now”, Blaine said. “It starts at eleven. You could catch a ride with me, if you want?”

It starts at eleven turned out to be a bit of an exaggeration. As everything else at Harnas, it was postponed three or four times due to various reasons, and it was almost twelve before the chapel was filled with people and everyone was ready to start.  
   By then, Kurt had had the time to examine every single inch of the building – twice. It was made of rocks and concrete, the side walls almost completely open to the nature outside, and it was scarcely furnished. Except for two cabinets containing songbooks, there were only the benches they were sitting on, and a small altar in the front. The wall behind it had a stone cross reaching all the way from the ceiling to the floor. It wasn’t like any church Kurt had ever seen before, but it was beautiful in its simplicity.  
   He’d also had the time to talk more to Blaine. Their conversation had started with Blaine telling him about Klippie the giraffe, who had loved the music so much that she’d always been lying outside the church during services, sticking her huge head through the open wall once in a while to rest it on a volunteer’s shoulder. It had moved on, past Kurt telling Blaine about his turkey herding adventures from the day before and Blaine’s stories about the crazy cat he’d had when he was younger, and now Blaine was refusing to tell Kurt what animal at Harnas he was the most afraid of.  
   “Come on, it can’t be that bad”, Kurt said. “Just tell me.”  
   “You’ll just laugh”, Blaine said. “I promise, it’s just silly. And embarrassing.”  
   “I won’t laugh, scout’s honor”, Kurt said.  
   “You were a boy scout?” Blaine asked, sounding honestly surprised (and seriously, who could blame him?) Kurt didn’t let him get away that easily, though.  
   “Not really. But don’t try to change the subject, just tell me!”  
   “All ri-“ Blaine began, but right then, the last car with people finally arrived, and he was cut off.  
   For what might have been the first time in his life, Kurt felt underdressed. The Bushwomen were dressed in long skirts, their hairs wrapped in beautifully patterned scarves, and many of them wore jewelry. The men were dressed up, too, and the children had dresses and shirts in a rainbow of colors. There seemed to be every generation, from the woman in the back who had to be supported by her daughters to walk from the trailer to the bench, to the smallest little infant, sleeping in a scarf tied to his mother's chest.  
   And then the service started. Kurt was surprised to find that there was not much talk about god. Actually, there was not much talking at all. Apart from one short sermon from one of the older bushmen, translated into English line by line by Mr. Shue, there was only music. Music, and dancing, and laughter. It wasn’t like any church Kurt had ever visited before.  
   Most of the songs were in Afrikaans, but Kurt found it pretty easy to sing along anyway. The melodies and the lyrics were simple, but the Bushmen harmonized in the most beautiful way. A few of the songs included dance moves, and although he felt a bit foolish, Kurt joined in with the rest of the people. The children were all standing in the front of the aisle, laughing and singing, and it was clear that they enjoyed themselves. Kurt found himself a bit surprised to see that he did, too.  
   After shaking the hands of everyone in the church, the service ended. Most people stood in small groups outside the chapel for a while, just talking and laughing. Blaine put a hand on Kurt’s shoulder.  
   “So… did you like it?”  
   “I actually did”, Kurt admitted.  
   “That’s a pity”, Blaine said, and Kurt raised an eyebrow.  
   “Why is that?”  
   “Otherwise, I would have had to make it up to you.” Kurt’s breath hitched from the tone in Blaine’s voice.  
   “And how would you do that?” he managed to say without his voice trembling.  
   “Oh, I think I would’ve come up with something. I can think of quite a few ways, actually.” And with those words, Blaine let his fingers run down Kurt’s arm, before turning and walking towards the car. Kurt had to take a few deep breaths before he dared to follow.

### Monday, fourth week

“Can I come in?”  
   Blaine looked up, as much as he could while having Ronnie the baboon grooming his hair. He found Kurt standing right outside the enclosure.  
   “Are you sure?” Blaine asked. Not because he didn’t want Kurt to come in, but as far as he knew, Kurt hadn’t been in there before. Kurt nodded.  
   “I just want to see how they’ll react.”  
   “Okay, then”, Blaine said. “Pockets empty?”  
   “Of course.” Kurt smiled, and entered through the first of the two gates. The three baboons immediately ran towards him, climbing the fence and shrieking excitedly.  
   “They will probably test bite you”, Blaine warned.  
   “It’s okay”, Kurt said, and greeted the top baboon by petting her hand. “Hello, Rosie.”  
   “Ronnie, Rika, komkomkom!” Blaine called, and Ronnie left the gate to come back to Blaine. Rika, on the other hand, just turned her head and looked at him. Blaine laughed.  
   Kurt opened the second gate, and the two baboons were on him in seconds. Rosie jumped to sit on his shoulders and Rika climbed up his leg and ended up hanging in the hem of Kurt’s shirt, which soon ripped. Blaine could see Kurt tense up for half a second as Rika bit his arm, but since Kurt didn’t react she soon stopped, and left to grab a piece of apple. Kurt sat down next to Blaine.  
   “So far, so good”, Blaine commented. He was a bit surprised, actually, he would have expected the baboons to go a little more crazy as someone new entered their enclosure.  
   “That wasn't too bad”, Kurt agreed. “They’re sweet.”  
   Ronnie lay on his back across Blaine’s legs, and Blaine scratched his belly “Most of the time, they are.”  
   A comfortable silence settled around them. Or well, a relative silence anyway, as silent as Harnas ever got. Laughter from a group of volunteers on the lawn could be heard, and in the enclosure next door Vlooi was chasing Bella with angry grunts. Birds were cheeping and chirping in the big tree above them, and somewhere, someone was raking the gravel.  
   Rika came jumping back down from one of the overhead branches, and Kurt caught her in the air. She settled in his lap, and stretched out on her back while curiously biting the button of his shorts.  
   “Have you done a sleepout with them?” Blaine asked.  
   “No, I haven’t.” Kurt said. Blaine tried distracting Rika with one of the broken floor ball balls he found at the ground, and luckily it worked. “I figured they wouldn’t sit still long enough. Have you?”  
   “Not with these guys, but I did one with Abu and Chloe when they were about this age, one of my last weeks as a volunteer.”  
   “How was it?”  
   “It was really good”, Blaine said with a fond smile. “They are so much calmer at night, and they are scared of the dark, so they are really cuddly and stuff. Chloe spent the entire night on my stomach in my sleeping bag, and Abu was curled up in the hood of my shirt.”  
   “That sounds a lot better than I imagined it”, Kurt admitted. “Maybe I should try it after all.”  
   “You should”, Blaine said convincingly. “At least once.”  
   “Would you do the sleepout with me?” Kurt, who was usually so confident, almost sounded shy, and Blaine wished with all his heart that he could say that yes, of course he would. But he couldn’t.  
   “I am really sorry, Kurt”, he said. “But I’m not allowed.”  
   “Sometimes I wish you were a volunteer”, Kurt said, seemingly before he could stop himself, because he blushed afterwards. Blaine just smiled at him, and put his hand on Kurt’s for just a moment.  
   “Sometimes I do, too.”

### Thursday, fifth week

”I’m going to miss you!” Tina was crying, her arms around Kurt’s neck, and he could feel her shaking with sobs.  
   “Don’t be silly, you’ll see me in two weeks”, Kurt said, but he hugged her a little extra hard and had to fight the tears himself. It would be so strange not having her here.  
   “Promise me you’ll look after Hansel and Gretel”, Tina said, and Kurt had to think a moment before he remembered it was two meerkats.  
   “I promise I will”, he said, and she let go, moving on to hug Carly instead.  
   It was weird. Out of the people who’d arrived with Kurt, he and Carly would be the only ones left after today. The rest of the people, Angelica, Lisa, Tina and Mila were all leaving, Philip had gone the week before. It would feel so empty, they had been through so much together, and Kurt would miss all of them. Angelica was next in line, hugging him tightly.  
   “Take care of our animals”, she said.  
   “Have a safe flight”, he answered. There really wasn’t much more to say. They would probably never meet again.  
   After the group of people leaving were done hugging, Mr Shue sent them to the buses. Tina managed to hug Kurt an extra time on her way there.  
   “If you leave without at least telling Blaine, I’ll never talk to you again”, she said quietly. “Do you hear me?”  
   Kurt nodded, and she let go. The next second she was in the bus. Kurt waved until he couldn’t see them any longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Sunday! Or well, happy any day you read this. 
> 
> I was just going to say thank you for all the comments and kudos this week, it really makes me very happy to hear your thoughts and opinions. Feel free to keep it up ;)
> 
> Also, since I got a question about it:  
> Harnas is absolutely real. The volunteering programme exists, I've been there three times, a total of 17 weeks, and it is very much like Kurt experiences it; Messy, hard and absolutely incredible. They have a website, if any of you would like to check it out (www.harnas.org) and I'd gladly answer questions too, if anyone has them.


	9. Chapter 9

### Friday, fifth week

“ _♪Toni-i-iiigh, we are young_  
_So let’s set the world on fire_  
_We can burn brighter_  
_Than the su-uuu-uuun♫_ ”  
   Kurt joined the group of people by the bonfire, a coke in his hand, and found a seat on one of the oil-barrel benches closest to the flames. The heat was nice in the cold night.  
   The ending lines echoed out, and Blaine took the last chord on his guitar. The volunteers around the bonfire all applauded, Kurt included.  
   “So, what do you want to sing next?” Blaine asked, and they soon settled for just another top 40-song. Kurt settled for listening.  
   Blaine did have a great voice. Kurt had heard it from a distance for a few songs now, but he hadn’t grown tired of it yet. It was soft, and sweet, and at the same time it could be so emotional. Kurt couldn’t remember ever hearing Blaine sing before, and he couldn’t help wondering why. Clearly he was good at it, that kind of voice didn't come without practice. And he seemed to enjoy it, too.  
   Another song ended, but Blaine didn’t stop playing. Instead, he picked a few strings, seemingly at random, before ending in an intro much too familiar to Kurt. And then Blaine looked at him, as if to say “join me?” and Kurt wondered for a second if Blaine knew how much this song meant to him, but he couldn't possibly. And Kurt wasn't sure he wanted to sing, he just knew that there was no way he could resist those puppy dog eyes.  
   ” _♪Blackbird singing in the dead of night_  
_Take these broken wings and learn to fly♫_ ”  
   Kurt joined in with the group of volunteers singing, but soon started harmonizing on his own. The others dropped off, one by one, and as Blaine started playing the next song, Kurt and Blaine were the only ones singing.  
   “ _♪Made a wrong turn_  
_Once or twice♫_ ”  
   Blaine looked at him, his eyes asking him to continue, so Kurt kept singing. They sung the rest of the song together, taking turns singing and harmonizing, not once breaking eye contact.    When the song ended, Kurt was a little out of breath, but met with cheers and applauds from the rest of the group. He saw Quinn walk up behind Blaine, and whisper something. Blaine nodded.  
   “Unfortunately, that was the last song for tonight”, he said, and stood up. “We have to go back now. Have a good night, and we’ll see you guys at breakfast.”  
   Kurt left the bonfire right after, still humming _Perfect_ quietly. He went straight to bed, staring up at the inside of his mosquito net, still thinking about Blaine. He was going to have to do something about that.

“When, exactly, are you going to do something about that?” Quinn asked, as soon as she shut the car door. She started the engine.  
   “About what?”  
   “Don’t even try.” Apparently, Quinn wasn’t in the mood for evasions. She slammed the gear in reverse. “Kurt, of course. I’ve never seen you like this. And he adores you, can’t take his eyes of you, he hasn't since his second week. So please, _please_ tell me you’re planning on doing something about this soon, before it makes you both miserable?”  
   “You know as well as I do that there is nothing I _can_ do about it”, Blaine said. He felt like she was making it worse, acting like he had a choice in this. “No staff-volunteer relationships. You know the rules. I can’t risk that.”  
   “They wouldn’t throw you out for something like that!” she protested.  
   “Are you sure?” Blaine asked. Quinn didn’t answer. “See? I _can’t_. I have nowhere else to go.”  
   Quinn didn’t say anything, so Blaine kept talking.  
   “I _really_ like Kurt, I do! But I only met him a few weeks ago, I can’t risk my entire life here to be with him. Not yet.”  
   “What if no one knew?” Quinn asked. “Top management and the volunteers, I mean. I could cover for you, Alex would too, and I can’t imagine Will or Finn saying anything either. If you got some time alone with Kurt, can you honestly say that nothing would happen? That you wouldn’t want it to? ”  
   “You really want this to happen, don’t you?” Blaine asked, deliberately avoiding her questions again.  
   “Of course I do!” Quinn all but screamed. “I haven’t seen you like this since… I don’t think I’ve ever seen you like this. You’re happy, Blaine, on a deeper level than even Harnas has managed to make you. I don’t want to see you lose that when he leaves.”  
   Blaine parked the car under the canvas roof, and turned sideways to face Quinn.  
   “I love you, you know”, he said. “And I wish you were right, and everything was as simple as you make it sound, but it’s not. But thanks for trying. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

### Saturday, fifth week

“So, the last thing we have to do every day is to herd the turkeys on the lawn”, Kurt explained, as he led the new Snoobabs newbie, Santana, through the courtyard towards the lawn. “One of these will be useful.” He handed her a long bamboo stick, before grabbing one of his own.  
   “Where are we taking them?” she asked.  
   “To the small enclosure where we put the food”, Kurt said. “They let the bat-eared foxes out on the lawn at night, so the turkeys has to be in, for safety. Look, there’s one.”  
   He started herding it towards the cage, not getting too much help, and had to start over as the turkey managed to run around and behind him. “There’s supposed to be fourteen, so please help me, or we won’t be done before dinner.”  
   Santana sighed, but turned around to chase a turkey out from the bushes. Thirty minutes later, they had them all gathered up and locked in. Kurt raised his hand for a high five, it had become something of a tradition after turkey herding, but the expression Santana gave him made him lower it again.  
   “We should get back”, he said instead. “We’re late, almost everyone has already left.” He saw one of the other newbies, a blonde girl, waiting by the gate. Probably someone Santana knew.  
   As they walked towards the gate, Blaine crossed the lawn. He waved to them.  
   “Are you coming to the bonfire?” Kurt called.  
   “Of course”, Blaine answered. “Wouldn’t miss the braai!”  
   “What’s a braai?” the blonde by the gate asked, as she literally bounced up to them. “Hi, I’m Brittany, I am Santana’s girlfriend.”  
   Kurt couldn’t say he wasn’t surprised by this, they seemed a little miss-matched from what he’d seen so far. Santana looked at him with a challenging expression on her face, and he didn’t comment on it.    “I’m Kurt”, he said instead, shaking Brittany’s outstretched hand. “A braai is like a barbeque, Saturdays are barbeque nights here. Meat, sausage, garlic bread… it’s usually really good.” He closed the gate behind them.  
   “Is the hobbit any good, too?” Santana asked, and Kurt raised an eyebrow. “Oh, please, we all saw the way you two were eye-fucking over the fire yesterday, don’t tell me you’re not sleeping with him.”  
   Kurt was too surprised by her bluntness to even form a coherent sentence. “I’m not”, he managed to stutter.  
   “Your loss”, she said.  
   “I think he likes you”, Brittany added.  
   They reached the fork of the road and turned left towards the village. Kurt was silent, his mind spinning. He almost stumbled into Santana, who had stopped dead in the middle of the track.  
   “What is it?” Kurt asked. Santana didn’t answer, she had her eyes fixed on a point on Kurt’s left. Her face had suddenly frozen.  
   Kurt – slowly – turned his head to see whatever it was. Two gleaming amber eyes watched him, slightly narrowed.  
   “Is that leopard… is it supposed to be here?” Santana asked quietly.  
   “Cheetah”, Kurt corrected automatically, realizing as he said so that none of the girls had had any experience with the big cats yet. “And no, this is a wild one. Don’t scream, don’t run, don’t back off.” It was the quickest advice he could give.  
   “I wouldn’t”, she said, but she didn’t sound quite as confident as she’d done the rest of the afternoon. Brittany’s hand grabbed Santana’s.  
   “It looks angry”, she said. “I don’t like it.”  
   “It’s okay”, Santana promised. “We’re going to be fine.” She sounded more confident than Kurt felt.  
   “I will try to scare it away”, he said, forcing his voice stay steady. He’d seen Blaine do this, some part of his brain was still rational enough to know what to do. The other, much bigger, part was utterly terrified, but there was _no way_ he was going to let the cheetah see that. Or Santana, for that matter. “Just don’t move.”  
   “Be careful” Brittany said.  
   “Yeah, the bloodstains would be a pain in the ass to get off this shirt”, Santana added. The mental picture that gave him wasn’t very helpful.  
   Kurt took a deep breath and two steps towards the cheetah. It reacted at once, hissing and slapping its paws on the ground. Kurt tensed up, but refused to let it show. There was a flicker in the cheetah’s eyes as he took another step, and with a snarl, it crouched a little. Kurt wasn’t sure if that was a sign of attack or resignation.  
   “Go away”, he told it, putting all the confidence he could muster behind his words. It just growled at him, showing off its teeth.  
   “I don’t think it speaks English”, Brittany commented, completely unnecessarily, from behind him. Her voice broke. “What are we going to do?”  
   ”Could you grab me a big stick?” Kurt cut her off. He didn’t dare to bend down himself; he was too close to the cheetah. Thankfully, Santana handed him one, and he put it in front of him, almost reaching the big cat with it. He hit the ground a couple of times, close to its face, and that seemed to finally give result. After slapping the stick with its paw once, the cheetah turned, and sprinted through the bushes. Kurt took a deep breath. His whole body was shaking, his knees threatening to bend. Behind him, he could hear Brittany sobbing.  
   “Thank you”, Santana said, and Kurt thought he might actually have heard a shudder in her voice. “That was… that was brave.”

### Monday, fifth week

Blaine was practically shaking with frustration.  
   “Looking good up there!”  
   On the branches of the tree above him, the three baby baboons had been joined by Kurt, who had found a nice fork where he could sit and play with them. It was adorable. He was throwing Rosie to one branch, catching Ronnie as he jumped from another. The way he was sitting forced him to use his muscles to balance, and it made his body look _fantastic_.  
   Unfortunately, Blaine wasn’t the only one who had noticed. One of the newbies, _Sebastian_ , was sitting on the ground, legs stretched out in front and both arms behind him, so that he could look up into the tree. He was definitely not ogling the baboons.  
   It wasn’t the first time since Sebastian’s arrival a couple days earlier that he was forcing himself upon Kurt. As far as Blaine knew, Kurt hadn’t given Sebastian any reason to believe he had a chance, but Sebastian was nonstop flirting all weekend, in a way that almost made Blaine feel sick.  
   “We’ll move on”, he called abruptly, standing up. It wasn’t as if he was jealous or something, he just didn’t like the way Sebastian kept trying when Kurt so obviously _wasn't interested_.  
   Or was he? Kurt took Sebastian’s outstretched hand as he jumped, almost as gracefully as the baboons, from the tree, and laughed at whatever it was Sebastian was saying. The smug expression in Sebastian’s face grew.  
   Blaine took off, with brisk steps straight through the bushes. He could hear that the volunteers were behind him, and didn’t care to turn around and check that they all followed. He gratefully accepted Rika’s hug, as she jumped up and settled herself on his hip.  
   “You don’t like him either, right?” he murmured to the baboon, scratching her head. “No you don’t, you’re a good girl.”  
   Angry baboon shrieks made him turn around. Ronnie jumped from Kurt’s shoulders. Sebastian had put his hand on Kurt’s arm, something the possessive baboon wasn’t too happy about, and Sebastian would have to pay for that with a few nice bruises. Blaine didn’t feel very sorry for him.  
   “Are you okay?” he asked, more out of duty than concern.  
   Sebastian nodded with gritted teeth as Ronnie gave him another bite, before jumping down to play with Rosie.  
   “Don’t ever touch someone who has a baboon on them”, Blaine commented.  
   “Thanks”, Sebastian said sarcastically. “I kind of figured.”

### Wednesday, fifth week

“A coke, please.”  
   “Seriously? No way!” Santana said, putting a bunch of tokens on the bar next to Kurt and looking up at the barman. “Three springbok shots.”  
   It was Wednesday, again, and another lapa night. All around Kurt, volunteers were talking, drinking and dancing.  
   “It’s green!” Brittany squeaked happily as the barman put the three small glasses on the bar desk.  
   “What is this?” Kurt asked Santana.  
   “I don’t know, amarula and menthol something I think”, she answered. “Apparently Sebastian had some in Windhoek, he’s been talking about them all day. Look, here he comes.”  
   Kurt groaned.  
   “Oh, are you having springboks?” Sebastian stopped next to them, and started looking in his pocket for more tokens.  
   “Here, you can have mine”, Kurt said quickly, before Sebastian had the time to order one of his own. “I’m on fence patrol early tomorrow morning anyways.”  
   “Technically, so are we”, Santana said. “Which is so unfair, why do we have to get a Thursday? But whatever. Shots! Hey Quinn, come join us!”  
   As Santana waved to Quinn, Kurt started looking around for Blaine, hoping to get rid of Sebastian as he did so. It took him a while to find Blaine, though, in the sofas in a corner.  
   “Hey”, he said, smiling weakly as Kurt slouched down next to him.  
   “Hey”, Kurt said. “Are you okay?”  
   “I’m fine”, Blaine answered. “Just didn’t sleep too well last night.”  
   “Did something happen?” Kurt looked questioningly at Blaine, but he didn’t look sad, or angry. He just looked tired.  
   “Not really”, Blaine said. “Just lots to think about, I guess.”  
   “Do you want to talk about it?”  
   For a second, Blaine looked as if he was about to say something. Then, he shook his head.  
   “Actually, I’d rather not.”  
   “Then don’t”, Kurt said. “That’s fine.”  
   They sat in silence for a few minutes.  
   “Do you want to do something fun instead?” Kurt asked, breaking it. “Come on, let’s dance!” And before he really knew what he was doing, he was on his feet, holding his hand out for Blaine to take. Blaine only hesitated a moment before allowing himself to be pulled to his feet. Laughing, Kurt grabbed his other hand too, and started moving them back and forth in a dance that would probably have worked better at kindergarten. Blaine laughed, too, and with a little more enthusiasm now, they joined Quinn, Brittany and Santana, and some other volunteers, who were already dancing around the fire.

### Thursday, sixth week

As Blaine parked the car by the volunteer village, Kurt was the only person to be seen. He was sitting on a log, his elbows on his knees, dressed in a hoodie that must have been at least one size too large. It probably had belonged to a volunteer who had left. Kurt's hair was still a little ruffled from sleep, in a way Blaine found a bit too adorable.  
   “Weren't there supposed to be three of you?” he asked as he jumped out of the front seat.  
   “Yeah, Brittany and Santana were supposed to be here”, Kurt said. “I guess they overslept. Should I… do you want me to go and wake them?”  
   Blaine only considered the option for a fraction of a second.  
   “We don’t have the time to wait for them to get ready if we want to be back for breakfast.” He said, knowing that he was probably lying. But spending an hour or two alone with Kurt wasn’t really an opportunity he wanted to miss. Kurt didn’t seem to mind, either. The realization made Blaine’s heart quicken.  
   They got in the front seat, and the land rover coughed a few times before leaving the village and the waterhole behind them.  
   It was still dark, although the sky was slightly shifting just by the horizon. Blaine drove them towards the first enclosure, trying to think of something to say. Instead, Kurt was the one to break the silence.  
   “Did you sleep better tonight?”  
   “I did”, Blaine said. “Although, a few more hours probably wouldn’t have killed me.”  
   “I know what you mean." Kurt yawned as if to confirm his words. “Last night was fun, though.”  
   “Yeah, it was.” Blaine smile turned into a smirk. “I had no idea you were such a dancer.”  
   "Shut up" Kurt blushed.  “I can’t believe I did that!”  
   “Come on, it wasn’t that bad”, Blaine laughed. “A little table top dancing, we’ve all done that.”  
   “Have you?” Kurt asked, both challenge and curiosity in his voice.  
   “Of course!” Blaine said. “My last lapa night, my second time here. Only then, we had played strip poker before, and I might have had a few too many shots... It was a crazy night.”  
   Kurt laughed.  
   “Oh, god, that must have been a sight.”  
   Blaine stopped the car outside the first enclosure, and took out a small thing with cables attached to it. He held the cables towards different parts of the fence.  
   “What are you doing?” Kurt asked.  
   “I’m checking the electricity”, Blaine said. “Since it’s solar powered, it might run out during the night. But this one is fine. You can try the next one, if you want.”  
   “I’d probably shock myself”, Kurt commented.  
   “No you wouldn’t”, Blaine said. “Come on, look, here comes Maddox.”  
   Kurt got out of the car, and joined Blaine at the enclosure gate. It was closed, and Maddox the lion was rubbing against it, as if asking them to cuddle him. Blaine managed to get his hands through the electric fence without shocking himself, and started to scratch the lion behind the ear. Maddox ughed contemptly.  
   “Can I?” Kurt asked.  
   “Sure”, Blaine said. “Try beneath the chin, that’s his favorite spot.”

Half an hour the car made a turn, and were faced with the most amazing sunrise Blaine had seen in a while. Not a cloud in the sky, just pink, orange and purple swirling together.  
   “Wow, that’s beautiful”, Kurt gasped.  
   Blaine got a sudden impulse.  
   “Come on”, he said, stopped the car and opened the door. He could hear Kurt imitating him as he started to climb the ladder. He held out his hand to Kurt, who grabbed it and followed. They crawled across the roof to the front, settling with their legs dangling over the hood of the car.  
   The extra height didn’t make any difference for the sunrise, but the lack of a dusty windscreen made the colors even more vibrant. He could hear Kurt draw his breath. His hand was still on Blaine’s.  
   Blaine hesitated for a moment, then thought _the fuck with it_ , and twisted his hand so that he could entwine their fingers.  
   They sat in silence, watching the sunset for a few minutes. Blaine kept glancing at Kurt, though, and when their eyes met, he couldn’t look away. They eyes stayed locked, and Blaine saw the deep breath Kurt took, somehow knowing was what coming. He wanted it _so_ much, but dreaded it at the same time.  
   “I’ve been meaning to talk to you”, Kurt begun.  
   “I’ve been hoping for a chance to talk to you too”, Blaine answered. At least that was true. He had wanted to talk to Kurt, he just hadn’t known what to say. Honestly, he still didn’t.  
   “Can I go first?” Kurt asked, and Blaine nodded gratefully.  
   Kurt was quiet for a few moments, apparently looking for the right words. Every second made Blaine more and more nervous.  
   “When I was preparing for this trip, everyone was talking about the cool animals I’d work with, and the things I would experience, and the places I would see”, Kurt finally started out. “I, on the other hand, was mostly thinking about the things I was getting away from.”  
   Blaine wasn’t sure where this was heading, it wasn’t exactly what he had expected, but he stayed silent, listening.  
   “I never expected to do half of the things I’ve done here”, Kurt kept going, “and I never expected I’d meet so many nice people. I thought I would have Tina, and that we would stick together all the time. But most of all, I never even dared to hope I´d find someone to whom I’d feel this close to in such a short time.” He took a deep breath, and looked at the sunrise for a moment. Blaine waited, his whole body feeling electric, anticipation and anxiety boiling together inside his stomach.  
   “I really like you, Blaine.” Kurt slowly turned so that he was face to face with him again. And Blaine wasn’t sure what his face was showing, wasn’t sure what he was feeling, he only knew that his body wanted to scream and shout and run and dance and laugh until he was out of breath. His brain just wanted to cry.  
   He tried to tell himself that he’d known this already, but just hearing Kurt saying those words threw away all his coherence, and it took him seconds to even realize he was probably supposed to _say_ something.    He started trying, but the syllables were all mixed up and it made no sense even to him. Kurt was starting to look nervous now, and that was making it even harder. Blaine forced himself to take two deep breaths, before trying again.  
   “I… Kurt, I don’t want you to think that I don’t care about you”, he managed, and after that, at least his words seemed to be actual words. “I really do, a lot. But…” And there he stopped, because the bliss on Kurt’s face had just turned into something Blaine couldn’t quite catch, he only knew that it _hurt_. Whatever he had meant to say disappeared.  
   “I do like you too”, he started over. “I really do. “ And the expression on Kurt’s face changed again, there was a hint of sadness but also hope, and more and more confusion. And Blaine knew he wasn’t making this easy for Kurt, but it wasn’t as though it was easy for him, either. “Any other time, at any other place, I would have asked you out weeks ago. You’re amazing, you know? Your sarcastic humor, and the way you care about other people, and the animals too. The way you’re so confident, and the next moment all flustered, it’s adorable. I like how you’ve been opening up to me, trusting me with things I know you wouldn't tell anyone, and I like how you make me feel like I can trust you too.”  
   Kurt was practically beaming now, and Blaine had never hated himself more.  
   “But I can’t do this”, he forced himself to continue. His voice got lower and he was looking down at his knees now, so that he wouldn’t have to see Kurt’s smile drop. “I wish I could, I really do. But you deserve so much more than a relationship that will have to stay hidden, you deserve someone who can hug you and comfort you and support you, and someone who can share your happiness and your strength and be proud to tell the world about his fantastic boyfriend. And I could get fired if I so much as held your hand in public. And even if I wasn’t a coordinator and you a volunteer, there is still the fact that we live on different continents, and in just a week you’ll be going back home, and I’ll be here, and I won’t be able to be there for you, and you deserve someone who can- you deserve better than me, is what I'm trying to...”  
   “Blaine?”  
   Blaine fell silent, looking up and meeting Kurt’s eyes.  
   “Just shut up and kiss me, will you?”  
   And Blaine did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's literally just past midnight, but it's technically Sunday here and I couldn't wait to post this one! I'm sure you understand why ;) Let me know what you think!


	10. Chapter 10

### Thursday, sixth week

Kurt was a little surprised to see that time hadn’t frozen.  
   As they broke apart, both a little out of breath, the colors had faded almost entirely from the sky. Then Blaine’s lips were on Kurt’s again, and Kurt didn’t notice anything else.  
   While their first kiss had been soft and exploring, a little tentative, the second one was nothing of the kind. There was a need in their kissing, and Blaine opened his mouth up, letting Kurt’s tongue trace the inside of his upper lip.  
   They both knew they needed to get going again, or people could start wondering, so after a last kiss (that may or may not have turned into three) they left the roof, still without a word. They got in the front seat again, and Kurt put his hand on Blaine’s on the gear stick.  
   The rest of the fence patrol passed in silence, Kurt was a little too overwhelmed to speak and Blaine appeared to feel the same. They kept stealing glances at each other, however, grinning whenever their eyes met, and butterflies seemed to have a cocktail party in Kurt’s stomach every time.  
Blaine checked the electricity in the last of the leopard enclosures, and got back in the car, making a U-turn so that they were heading back towards the farm. They would be a few minutes late to breakfast, but not too bad.  
   Kurt wasn't sure what this morning meant for them, but right now, it felt too precious to touch. He was content with just sitting there, his hand on Blaine's. What would happen would happen. The week until he was going to leave felt frighteningly short, and at the same time very long . They would have time to talk about this later. At this moment, Kurt just wanted to revel in the memories of Blaine's lips against his.

“What would you say if I told you I’d done something that would probably get me fired, and also happens to be illegal?” Blaine asked quietly, as he walked up to Quinn. She was sitting in the shade by a tree, bottle feeding Bella the baboon.  
   “Finally!”Quinns squeal made the baby monkey jump straight out of her arms and hide behind the trunk. She barely noticed. “When?!”  
   “This morning, on fence patrol. I kissed him”, Blaine said. “I wasn’t planning on it, it just sort of… happened.”  
   “So… what’s next?” Quinn asked, stretching her hand out to the baboon, hugging it softly as Bella settled in her lap again. “It’s okay, sweetie, nobody is going to hurt you.”  
   “I have no idea”, Blaine answered truthfully. “I mean… he leaves next week.” Just the thought made his throat thicken uncomfortably.  
   “He can’t extend again?” Quinn sounded sad.  
   “His job has already given him two more weeks”, Blaine said. “He said they would probably fire him if he even asked for more.”  
   Quinn sighed, and put the now empty milk bottle on the ground.  
   “You better make the most of it, then”, she said. Blaine nodded.  
   "Will you help with that? Cover for me, if needed?"  
   "You know I will", Quinn replied. "I'm happy for you, Blaine."

Kurt felt _good_.  
   He wasn’t sure exactly what had happened that morning, or where that left them, but whatever it was made him feel pretty amazing. The happiness he had felt for weeks had intensified, he was practically dancing on the spot, his head replaying that kiss over and over again.  
   “Earth to Kurt, earth to Kurt.”  
   Oh, yeah. And he was supposed to be digging a hole.  
   He tried to make it look as though he’d just been taking a break because of the heat, saying “My god, it’s hot!”, wiping his forehead and taking a sip from his water bottle.  
   “It is”, Sebastian agreed, giving Kurt a look that made his insides squirm. And not in a good way.  
   “You want to swap?” Michelle, who was standing in the shade by a tree, keeping an eye out for Kazu the leopard.  
   “Thanks”, Kurt said, handing her the shovel and watching as she joined the others by the, still pretty small, hole they’d managed to dig. He scanned the trees around them. There was no sign of any leopard. Blaine liked leopards. Blaine, who was washing cars with three volunteers at the moment, probably in a shirt that had gotten all wet and clung to those abs that Kurt yet hadn’t seen but knew had to be there, and… oh, right. Looking for leopards.  
   Finn was using a pick axe to break a big rock they’d found underground, right where the new waterhole was supposed to be. Carly, Amanda and Michelle were all struggling with the hard ground crossed by roots. Sebastian was currently taking his shirt off and throwing it over next to Kurt. When he noticed Kurt was watching him, he flexed his stomach muscles and stretched a little. Kurt scanned the trees again, trying hard to keep his focus _in_ the enclosure.  
   “Sebastian, if you need a rest, swap with Kurt”, Finn said, obviously annoyed. “Or get back to digging, I’d like us to get finished before lunch.”  
   “Fat chance”, Sebastian muttered, and grabbed the shovel. Finn raised the pick axe over his head and went back to crushing the rock.  
   Kurt soon swapped with Amanda, who’d been digging next to Finn, and jumped down into the now barely bigger hole. It was hard work, the grass had long, surprisingly sturdy roots and when they were gone the ground was hard. Forcing himself to put all that excess energy into digging, Kurt slammed the shovel to the ground and actually managed to break away a big chunk of dirt.  
   Half an hour later, he felt disgusting. Sweat was running down his back, his shirt clung to his skin, and he was in desperate need of a shower.  
   “You could take that off, you know”, Sebastian said, pulling the hem of Kurt’s shirt slightly. “I don’t think anyone would mind. I certainly wouldn’t.” There was a smug grin on his face, and his eyes kept trailing Kurt’s torso. Kurt shuddered.  
   “Sebastian?” he said. “Fuck off.”  
   Sebastian looked more surprised than hurt, but turned around and went back to digging. If felt good. It wasn't the best comeback he'd ever come up with, but he'd gotten pretty tired of Sebastian's suggestive comments, and hopefully, that would be the last of it.

### Saturday, sixth week

This whole thing was starting to drive Blaine insane.  
   As he passed through the foodprep area, his arms full of donkey ribs for the lions, he caught Kurt looking at him. Again. Blaine met his eyes and smiled softly, making Kurt blush just slightly, not enough for anyone else to notice.  
   “I’ll go and get the lucerne for the turkeys”, Blaine heard Kurt say to his teammates, and smiled when he realized that meant they would walk the same way. Maybe they would actually have a second to talk.    “Hi, Blaine, could you help me feed the leopards” a voice behind him asked, and he turned around to find Wilma, one of the newer volunteers. “Gabbana has been fighting the others for food the last few days, so Mr Shue said you’d help to make sure they don’t injure each other.”  
   “Sure”, Blaine said, and with an apologetic glance at Kurt, he dropped the donkey ribs at the nearest table.  
   It had been two days. Two days, a thousand stolen glances, and not a single word about it.  
   It wasn’t as if though he and Kurt hadn’t wanted to talk about it, it was more like life had decided to do whatever it could to keep them apart. Whenever they found themselves in the same place, there was either more people around or some kind of emergency that forced one of them to hurry away. Blaine could swear he had never been more popular than in the last couple days, whenever he had a second off he seemed to be acutely needed in at least two places at a time.  
   They only had four more days together, and the last two they hadn't been able to exchange a word. Blaine was starting to wonder if this was all it was ever going to be. Would Kurt be leaving on Thursday, giving Blaine a wave and a last smile and then be off to the US forever? Would that kiss be all they’d ever get?  
   After supervising the feeding of the leopards he passed the foodprep area again. Kurt wasn’t there, and Blaine supposed he was still in the garden, picking lucerne. He quickly turned his steps in that direction, and must have taken about six or seven when he was stopped again.  
   “Blaine?”  
    _What. Now.?_  
   “Yeah”, he said, trying and failing not to sound annoyed.  
   It was Kurt standing there, holding two buckets and a brush, apparently not at all coming from the garden.  
   “Mr Shue asked me to look over Gumbi’s waterhole, but I'm not allowed to be in there without a coordinator. I was just wondering if you’d help me?” He sounded so innocent, like it was just an everyday question, but Blaine knew that look. And Kurt was _not_ thinking about cleaning waterholes.  
   “Sure”, Blaine said, and they turned towards the hyena’s enclosure. Gumbi was nowhere to be seen, so they slipped through the gate easily.  
   “It definitely needs cleaning, don’t you think?” Kurt said loudly, and put the equipment on the ground.  
   The waterhole wasn’t placed so that they were really in private, but at least they were more than five feet from the nearest human being and that was the closest they had been to alone since Thursday. As long as they were quiet and fast, maybe they could actually talk.  
   “So about Thursday morning”, Blaine started out, not daring to waste any time.  
   “Don’t tell me it was wrong and can’t ever happen again”, Kurt said. “Because you know as well as I do there was nothing wrong with that kiss.” He sounded light, almost as if he was joking, and Blaine smiled.    “I was actually going to say that I hope it can happen again.”  
   “I’d like that.”  
   They both grinned, and if they hadn’t been out in the open, Blaine was pretty sure they would have kissed again.  
   The gate swung open behind them, and the screeching sound broke their eye contact.  
   “I thought I’d help you guys”, Amy, one of the new Snoobab volunteers, said, putting another bucket on the ground. “We’re finished with the meercat enclosure anyway.”  
    _So much for alone-time_ , Blaine thought. But well, at least they’d had a minute. Possibly even a minute and a half.

### Sunday, sixth week

“I want you all to think about the person you were when you arrived here.”  
   An old man, cousin of the owner and coordinator of the mature volunteers, was standing at the front of the small chapel. Kurt had seen him around the farm sometimes, but hadn't had much to do with him. As usual, he wasn’t wearing shoes, and as usual, his old and weathered face was frowning. He was known to be better with animals than with humans, and Kurt was not regretting the fact that he hadn’t had the chance to get to know the old man better.  
   “Some of you haven’t been here long”, the man continued. “But you may already have started to feel the change. Some of you have been here for weeks, and still think you are the same people who left Europe, or America, or wherever you are from. If you still think that…” he took a moment’s pause, “you haven’t _really_ arrived here.”  
   It was another one of probably really inspiring speeches that never seemed to have any effect on Kurt. Of course he was not the same person here as he was at home, he was with different people in a different situation. He was stronger, braver and more confident here than he was at home. He was happier. He didn't need a service in church to figure that out.  
   “Now, if you have changed, take a second and try to figure out why.” The old man kept talking. That wasn't too hard to understand, either. He had to be. He had to be strong, and be brave, to manage the everyday challenges this place put him through. Both for his own sake, and for the animals. He was happier because he was finally doing something he enjoyed again, after spending almost a year with a job he hated, having given up all he ever thought he was good at and had wanted to spend his life making.  
   “What I want you to take with you from today”, the old man concluded, “is that most of the things you just thought about can be changed at home too. And you can change them yourself, if only you have the guts to do so. When I look into the eyes of Zion, or Trust, or Macho, or any of the lions, I see no regret. They don’t walk around feeling bad because of something they can change. They change it, and then they face the consequences. There is a lot to learn about life from the animals." And now, Kurt started to actually listen. This was probably the first time Kurt had ever felt something from words said in a church. Maybe because this was not about a god. This was about humans, and their own power to affect and decide their own futures.  
   "So if you are in a bad relationship", Frikkie said, "break away from it. If you dislike your job; quit it. If your second-guessing your life choices; stop. Do something about it, and deal with whatever happens next. Find a way. Don't wait for someone to do it for you, because no one will, and the right time will never happen unless you make it happen. Now, let’s sing another song.”  
   Kurt was lost in thought as the other’s sang. Was it really that easy. Quit his job? Could he actually do that? He’d never even considered it before, it was just something that you didn't do, right? But if he was hoping to start studying next semester anyway, did he really need those two extra months? Maybe things would actually be better if he just quit, and stopped hating everything about his life.  
    _If I quit, I will be able to stay._  
   And as soon as that thought hit him, it was settled. Kurt was quitting his job.

### Monday, sixth week

Blaine almost stumbled over Kurt as he was leaving his dirty clothes in the laundry area.  
   “Bye, dad, love you too.” He heard Kurt finish, and then Kurt looked up.  
   “I just resigned.”  
   Whatever Blaine had been expecting, that wasn’t it.  
   “You _what_?”  
   “I quit my job. I hate it anyways.”  
   “So what are you going to do when you get home?” Blaine felt confused.  
   “Well…” And there was that grin again, “first of all, I’m not going home anytime soon. How does another, I don’t know, six weeks sound to you?”  
   “You…” Blaine was too stunned to move. “You’re staying?”  
   “For as long as they’ll have me.” Kurt didn’t even have time to finish his sentence before Blaine threw his arms around him, hugging him tightly.  
   “I’m so glad you’re not leaving”, he said, almost whispering. “Maybe we’ll actually have the chance to spend some time together.”  
   “I really hope so” Kurt said, giving Blaine a quick kiss on the cheek before he let go. Blaine quickly looked around, but the laundry area seemed deserted. “Will you go with me to the office?”  
   “Sure”, Blaine agreed. “I’m not sure we’ve ever had a volunteer extend their stay from three to twelve weeks, Emma might faint!”  
   They reached the office, took their shoes off and stepped in. Surprisingly, they found Emma sitting on the floor next to a cardboard box.  
   “Oh, hi”, she said, standing up and brushing her skirt off carefully. “Come see what is in here.”  
   At first all Blaine could see was a light blue blanket, but then he saw a nose coming out from underneath it, and a second later a small brown creature appeared.  
   “It’s a baby mongoose”, Emma told Kurt. “They found it abandoned on the lawn this morning, so now I’m taking care of it until it’s old enough to be released with the others.”  
   “It’s adorable”, Kurt said. “I can’t believe it will grow up to something so vicious.”  
   “They aren’t vicious”, Blaine protested. “They are just… misunderstood.”  
   “I was napping on the lawn a couple weeks ago and woke up from one biting my cheek and two other’s eating my toes”, said Kurt. “They’re vicious.”  
   “I’m guessing that’s not the reason you’re in here”, Emma interrupted. “Did you want help with anything?”  
   “Oh, yeah”, Kurt said. “Sorry. I wanted to ask if I can extend my stay again.”  
   “Another week?”  
   “Well… another six weeks, if that is possible. Twelve is maximum, right?”  
   Blaine smiled at Emma's facial expression.  
   “Wow, that’s a long extension!” she said, with a bad attempt to hide her surprise. “We’re not fully booked, so as long as your visa is fine, that shouldn’t be a problem. Do you have it or do you want me to look at it for you?”  
   “I have a copy in the village, but if you can check it from here, that would be great”, Kurt said.  
   Emma turned to the computer, clicked a few times and then turned back to them with an apologetic smile.  
   “I’m sorry, but your visa is only valid for another three weeks”, she said. “If we’d known sooner, they could probably have extended it, but it will probably take them more than three weeks to do that…”    “Is there anything he can do?” Blaine chipped in, not ready to give up just yet.  
   “Not really… Well, unless you want to go to the embassy in Windhoek, they could probably fix it for you, but I’m not sure if you can get a ride there.”  
   “Can’t I leave with the volunteer bus on Thursday and get back with the same bus on Friday morning?” Kurt asked, and noticed he was starting to sound a bit desperate. “I really, really want to stay as long as possible.”  
   “You won’t have enough time in Windhoek, the bus usually doesn’t arrive until early evening”, Emma said. “So unless anyone is going any other time…” That gave Blaine an idea.  
   “I have a few days off in two weeks and was planning on driving to Windhoek”, he said. “Maybe Kurt could ride with me?” Up until then, Blaine hadn’t known what he would do with his days off, but a few days in Windhoek, alone with Kurt? He couldn't imagine anything better.  
   Kurt looked at Blaine, positively beaming.  
   “That would be amazing, Blaine, thank you!”  
   “No problem”, Blaine said with a grin. “Believe me, it won’t be any trouble.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another week, another chapter. Thank you all so much for the response on the last one, you made my week :) I hope you enjoyed reading this one too!


	11. Chapter 11

### Tuesday, sixth week

“… which means I’m probably staying six more weeks”, Kurt finished telling Santana over breakfast the next morning.  
   “Then you’ll still be here when we leave”, Brittany said. “That’s unfair!”  
   “Your dance rehearsals start when we get home”, Santana reminded her. “You wouldn’t want to miss those, would you?”  
   “You’re right”, Brittany agreed. “I wouldn’t. But I _would_ want to stay longer.”  
   “I know”, Santana said, putting her hand on Brittany’s. “Maybe we’ll come back here someday. But now…” She turned back to Kurt. “Did you say Blaine was driving you to Windhoek?”  
   “He is, yes”, Kurt said. “He has a few days off and was going anyways.”  
   “So, are you finally going to make a move on him then?” Santana asked. “And please don’t pretend there is nothing going on, Kurt, because we all know there is.”  
   “Actually”, Kurt said, lowering his voice and surprising himself with the decision to trust the two girls, “that move may be made already. Although I’m not perfectly sure how it turned out.”  
   “You…”  
   “I kissed him. Or well, technically he kissed me. On fence patrol last Thursday.”  
   “I _knew_ it was a good idea to ‘forget’ to set the alarm”, Santana said. “You two seemed to need some privacy.”  
   “Of course you did that on purpose.” Kurt sighed and shook his head. “But I guess I should sort of thank you. Privacy isn’t really something we get a lot of around here.”  
   “Are you boyfriends now?” Brittany asked excitedly. “I mean, Santana and I kissed for _ages_ before we became girlfriends, but I think you should be. Boyfriends, I mean, not girlfriends. That would be… strange. If you were girlfriends, not boyfriends, that wouldn’t be strange. Or…”  
   “It’s okay, Brit, I think he gets the point”, Santana said, lightly touching Brittany’s cheek. “So are you?” she added, turned to Kurt.   
   “We aren’t boyfriends, no. Or girlfriends, for that matter”, Kurt said. “We haven’t really put a label on it, it’s just a something so far. We have barely even been able to talk since it happened, there seems to be people everywhere these days.”  
   “Is he the reason you are staying?” Sometimes, Kurt hated Santana’s blunt questions.  
   “Yes? No? He is definitely part of it, I want to figure this thing out before I leave and never see him again. But I think I would have stayed even if nothing had happened.”  
   “Okay, guys, time for morning meeting”, Mr. Shue called through the opening of the lapa, putting an end to their conversation. “We have quite a lot on the schedule today, so let’s get started right away, shall we?”

  


### Thursday, seventh week

“… and so the ostrich spun around and started chasing him, and he ran like crazy but didn’t get very far, and suddenly he just dropped down on the ground, flat on his stomach. And the ostrich stopped like maybe a foot from him, and just couldn’t seem to understand where he’d gone. So after a few minutes, it walked away, and Finn could get up and get back to us. It looked hilarious!” Kurt finished, and they all laughed.   
   “Finn has never had much luck with those ostriches”, Blaine said, with a look at his colleague.   
   “Hey, it’s not my fault they are too big and lacking a toe”, the Australian protested. “If they were just emus, I would have them all under control.”  
   “Oh yeah, keep believing that”, Blaine said, and rose from the bench in the dining area. “I’m going to get another coke, does anyone want something?”  
   “Could you get me a Savanna dry?” Kurt said, and Blaine took his outstretched tokens. “Thanks!”  
   As he returned with the drinks, Finn had left the seat next to Kurt to go and talk to Will, so Blaine slipped in beside Kurt. Santana immediately looked at Brittany.  
   “Shouldn’t we go down to the bonfire?” she asked. “I think I have some marshmallows in my bag.”  
   Brittany jumped up.  
   “See you guys later!” she said, and they left hand in hand.  
Blaine looked at them, a little confused at first. The dinner area wasn’t really empty, but at least there was no one left by their table and the hum of voices from volunteers filled the room enough for them not to be overheard.  
   “I think they wanted to give us some privacy”, Kurt said with a low voice, and Blaine was suddenly grateful. Even though they weren’t alone, at least they could have a quiet conversation without being overheard. It wasn’t the ideal place to talk about the things Blaine wanted to talk about, but hey, at least they got to spend some time together. Around here, they kind of had to take what they could get.  
   They sat in silence for a while, and every minute felt a little bit like a waste, now that they had the chance to talk, but still it was such a comfortable silence that Blaine couldn’t really make himself break it. It felt natural, sitting there. Good. Like that was what they were supposed to do.  
   Instead, Kurt was the one who spoke first, and Blaine looked at him as he talked, smiled, gestured. They fell into conversation, as comfortable as the silence, easy-going and nice and just… right. Kurt made Blaine chuckle with his witty comments, and Blaine somehow made Kurt laugh with his stupid jokes. They spoke about nothing, and everything, and Blaine started to learn the little things about Kurt. He played the piano but had always wanted to learn the violin. He sew his own outfits, adored Lady Gaga and knew every single line from Wicked. Blaine found himself realizing how little they really knew about each other. It probably should have frightened him a bit, knowing that he wanted a long-distance relationship with a person he’d honestly just met. But yet, he wasn’t scared. He was just intrigued, wanting more than ever to get to know Kurt better, and to let Kurt get to know him too. If they didn’t get the chance before then, at least they would have a couple days in Windhoek. In a way, Kurt's visa expiring too early was the best that could have happened to them.

### Saturday, seventh week

The sun was burning, but thankfully, the cheetahs were on their way in to the thicker bush now. Kurt prayed to whatever deity he didn’t believe in that they would soon take a nap in some nice shade somewhere.  
   They had been following the three big cats on a walk for almost an hour now, and the sun was burning. The four other volunteers looked as tired as Kurt felt, their legs scratched from thorny bushes and faces red from the heat. Kurt took a sip from his water bottle.  
   When Shingela finally lay down under a huge acacia in a clearing, a loud “YES!” was heard from behind Kurt, and a newbie named Sam dropped down in the shade of a bush close by. Lueki the cheetah walked around the tree twice before dropping down beside Shingela. The third of the cheetahs, however, seemed to have no such plans, and wandered straight into the bush on the other side of the open space.  
   “Someone has to go after her, or we’ll never find her again”, Blaine said. “If four stay behind, you can split up if the cheetahs do, and no one has to go alone.”  
   “I could go after Jeanie”, Kurt offered, hoping that Blaine would catch on. And of course, he did.  
   “Good, then you and I keep going right away, while we can still see her, and the rest of you stay here. We’ll meet by the car in about one and a half hours if not before then, make sure the cheetahs follow you back. That’s why you have the pieces of meat. Nellie, you’ve been here before, you know the drill, right?”  
   Nellie nodded.  
   “Good”, Blaine finished, and turned the way the third cheetah had just gone. Kurt followed in silence, waiting for them to get far away from the others before speaking.  
   “Please tell me she’ll lie down soon?”  
   “Oh, she will”, Blaine said. His hand easily found Kurt’s , and their fingers intertwined. “But she is kind of a loner, doesn’t usually want to rest to close to the others. Give her ten minutes or so, and she’ll find some shade.”  
   Luckily, Jeanie did. Kurt scratched her behind the ear as she suddenly dropped down, right before their feet, and then sat down next to Blaine, leaning against the nearest tree trunk.  
   “…can I ask you something?” he said, and Blaine turned towards him, his face not really close to Kurt’s but definitely closer than regular speaking distance.  
   “Sure.”  
   “Were you actually going to Windhoek, or was that just to help me?”  
   “I… I didn’t really know what to do with those days”, Blaine admitted. “But I’m not just going for you, either. I have selfish motives too.”  
   “Like…?” Kurt asked, a teasing note in his voice. His stomach fluttered.  
   “Like being able to spend some time with you?” Blaine said. “If you want to”, he added quickly, “unless you have other plans?”  
   “I’d love spending more time together”, Kurt said with a grin. “Other than renewing my visa, I have no plans whatsoever.”  
   “Good.” Blaine smiled. “Then maybe I could take you out for dinner?”  
   “As on a date?” Kurt asked.  
   “If you want to?” Blaine said. He looked a bit more nervous than Kurt was used to, not really the flirtatious and teasing man he had gotten to know in the last weeks.  
   “It sounds wonderful”, he said. “But only on one condition.”  
   “What is that?”  
   “That you let me take you out the other night.”  
   “Inviting me to a second date before the first one has even happened?” Blaine asked, and there was the teasing again. “Calm down there, Hummel, you don’t want to seem too eager.”  
   “Well, I don’t know if I’ll have another chance, do I?”  
   “True”, Blaine agreed. “It’s a date then. Or well, two.”  
   “I look forward to it.”  
   Blaine smiled again, and leaned closer to Kurt’s face, so that their lips were almost touching.  
   “So do I.”

### Sunday, seventh week

“Hey, Blaine, are you playing?” Blaine heard Kurt call as he crossed the lawn.  
   “Playing what?”  
   “In the fetchball game!” Oh, right, it was Sunday. Blaine stopped next to Kurt.  
   “I’d like to, but I can’t. Someone has to feed the outside animals while you guys all have fun.”  
   “Oh.” Kurt looked slightly disappointed for a second, before smiling. “Would you like some company?”  
   “Why, do you know anyone who’d like to join me?” Blaine asked, and Kurt stuck his tongue out. “Fine, I guess you could come. The land rover is packed already.”  
   They set off towards the car park, and saw Quinn and Alex coming out from the foodprep area.   
   “Hey Quinn!” Blaine called. “If anyone asks, Kurt is joining me on the outside feeding, okay?”  
   “Okay!” Quinn answered, and, after a second, added: “Have fun!” Blaine kept himself from rolling his eyes. Almost.  
   They got in the car, and it coughed to a start.   
   “It’s only the baboons today, the carnivores are fasting”, Blaine said, and Kurt nodded.  
   “No donkey heads, then?”  
   “Are you disappointed? I thought that was every volunteer’s favorite part?” Blaine couldn’t help but mock.  
   “Oh, of course, nothing like a few donkey brains in the morning”, Kurt bickered back. "Preferably right after breakfast."  
   The car soon rolled to a stop in front of the biggest baboon enclosure, and they started tossing the corn porridge over the fence.  
   “Can you hit one?” Blaine asked.  
   “One what?”  
   “Baboon of course!”  
   “I don’t know. Never tried…”  
   “You haven’t?” Blaine was surprised. “That is the funniest part of mieliepap throwing. It’s almost impossible, though.”  
   And true enough, Kurt had soon emptied two of the big buckets without a single hit. The dripping mass had hit him a lot though, and Blaine couldn’t help but chuckle at the sight of him.  
   “You’ve got mieliepap everywhere”, he said, putting his now empty buckets in the back of the car. “Here, let me help.”  
   Kurt stood still, and Blaine tried to remove some of the mieliepap from his hair, but since Blaine’s hands were full of the mess too, he only managed to make it worse. Kurt stepped backwards.  
   “Wait, you have some in your face too”, Blaine said.  
   “Where?”  
   “Right there.”He kissed Kurt on the nose.  
   “Are there any more?” There was a flirtatious note to Kurt’s voice that Blaine wasn’t really used to, but oh, he liked it. He didn’t even think before leaning in.  
   “Maybe a little bit, right about… here.”  
   They kissed softly, sweetly. Blaine’s arms found their way around Kurt’s body as Kurt’s one hand cupped Blaine’s cheek and the other sneaked around his neck and up in his hair. Their bodies pressed together, they kept kissing, more and more fiercely. They only stopped when a bird shrieked in a tree above, startling them both.  
   Blaine was about to lean in again, but Kurt stopped him, kissing him softly on the cheek before speaking.  
   “Blaine?”  
   “Yes?”  
   “What are we doing?”  
   Blaine didn’t really understand the question.  
   “We’re making out?”  
   “Well, yeah. I mean, I know, I just mean… _Why_ are we making out?”  
   Blaine still didn’t get it.  
   “Because it’s _nice_?”  
   “It is”, Kurt agreed. “I really like making out with you, I just… what are we, Blaine? Are we a couple? Boyfriends? Or is this more of a few weeks thing that is over when I leave? I just… I guess I just need to know.” He looked down at their feet, and Blaine cupped his chin, lifting it up so that their eyes met.  
   “Oh Kurt”, he said, trying to put as much affection in the name as he could. “I wish I could tell you what will happen when you leave, but I can’t. No one can. But I can tell you that for me, this is more than a few weeks thing. I _really_ like you, and I hope this can continue on. And I would be honored to be your boyfriend, if you’d want me to.”  
   And this time, it was Kurt who leaned in, catching Blaine’s lips in the middle of the last sentence.

### Tuesday, seventh week

There was a slight feeling of rain in the air as Kurt made his way from the volunteer room towards the baboon enclosure, trying to carry both a mattress and the sleeping bag while still keeping the flashlight directed towards the ground. He didn’t think much of it though, too excited about the sleepout to worry about a little rain.   
   As he entered the enclosure, Kurt didn’t even have the time to put the mattress down before they were all over him. Rika was trying to get into his sleeping bag while Ronnie, pulling his hair, landed on his shoulders.  
   “Hey, calm down”, he laughed, trying not to step on any tails as he settled on the ground. “It’s bedtime.”  
   He was a little surprised to see the baboons actually calming down. But with Rika in the sleeping bag on his stomach, Ronnie hiding under one of his arms and Rosie curled up next to his head, he actually managed to fall asleep pretty quickly.

It didn’t last very long, though. He had no idea what time it was when he woke, but it was still pitch black outside. A flash of lightning lit up the enclosure for a moment, illuminating the branches above, and then came a crash that almost made the ground shake. A second later, Kurt was soaked.   
    _Fuck_ , he thought. _What do I do now?_  
   Small arms gripped his stomach hard in the sleeping bag, and as he sat up, all three baboons immediately clung to him, curling up against each other.  
   “You don’t like the thunder, do you?” he said softly. “It’s okay, it’s not going to hurt you.”  
   Another crash sent the three monkeys scrambling from the sleeping bag, and running to the small house they had as a shelter, cuddling together inside. Kurt found himself wishing he could join them, at least there it would be dry. Instead, he lay down again, pulling the sleeping bag up over his face. It was going to be a long night.  
   “Kurt?”   
   He pulled the sleeping bag off again, sitting up and looking in the general direction of the voice.  
   “Blaine?”  
   “I woke up from the thunder and realized you must be drowning out here”, Blaine said. “Come on, I’ll help you.”  
   Feeling incredibly grateful, Kurt pulled the now wet and heavy mattress and sleeping bag out of the enclosure, and with Blaine’s help he got the things over to a nearby wall.  
   “Just put them back tomorrow”, Blaine said quietly as they huddled under a small roof. “Nobody will blame you for interrupting a sleepout in this weather.”  
   “I don’t look forwards to going back to the village”, Kurt said. “What time is it, anyways?”  
   “About midnight”, Blaine said. “And well… I guess you could stay the night with me, if you want. I probably have some dry clothes you could borrow, and as long as you leave early enough tomorrow morning, nobody should notice.”  
   “That sounds… I’d like that.” Kurt smiled.  
   “Let’s get going then”, Blaine said, pulling Kurt by the hand the few steps to the staff quarters. “Come on, this one is mine.”


	12. Chapter 12

### Wednesday, seventh week

At Blaine’s first night at Harnas, he had thought the African sunset was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen; the sky, bright orange fading to pink to a dark purple, the trees illuminated, almost fairytalesque, the sun big and red as it slowly disappeared. But as the dusk turned to night, and the stars came out, Blaine had to change his mind. The millions of tiny lights, with the milky way crossing the blackness, was simply breathtaking, even more so than the sunset. And then came dawn, and Blaine was once again forced to reevaluate. There was a promise in the air from the rising sun, the birds chirping in the bushes and the sky a soft pink, with a few clouds just hovering by the horizon. At that moment, Blaine had been pretty sure he would never see anything more beautiful in his life.  
   But as he woke up that morning, with Kurt next to him, he knew he had been wrong. Kurt, lying on his side with his fingers still loosely wrapped around the hem of Blaine’s t-shirt, his hair ruffled from sleep but still somehow perfect, his face so relaxed and his eyes closed, was simply the definition of beauty.  
   And then Kurt stirred a little, and yawned, and his eyes blinked open.  
   “Hey beautiful”, Blaine half-whispered, making Kurt’s tired face form a smile.  
   “Good morning, gorgeous”, he answered, making Blaine's hearts give an extra twist.  
   “I should get going”, Kurt mumbled, almost immediately, and Blaine turned his head to see the clock on his wall. Half past five. The farm would start to wake up any minute.  
   He put an arm around Kurt, kissing his neck a few times.  
   “I wish you could stay”, he said quietly.  
   “Me too” Kurt said honestly. He looked at the clock again, then rolled over, and pulled his now dry-ish hoodie over Blaine’s t-shirt.  
   He gave Blaine a quick kiss, before standing up.  
   “See you at breakfast”, he whispered, and slipped out of the door. Blaine looked at that door for several minutes. He missed Kurt already.

“Hey Blaine”, Kurt said as they met by the bar that night. “Wow, you look great!”  
   If “black tie” hadn’t already been Kurt’s favorite lapa night theme so far, it definitely was now. It wasn’t as if Blaine didn’t always look amazing, but the light short-sleeved dress shirt showed off his arms very nicely and the cute bowtie added a personal touch that Kurt thought was adorable. And Kurt himself felt like he looked pretty decent too, probably for the first time in seven weeks.  
   “So do you!” Blaine said. And then, as if remembering they were not alone, he added: “You too, Brittany, I really like your dress.”  
   Brittany made a little twirl.  
   "Thank you!” she said. “Santana says it makes my eyes pop, but I think that sounds scary.”  
   They made their orders at the bar, and brought their drinks over to the group of couches. Someone was fingering with the sound system, and a couple minutes later, loud music was blasting from the speakers. A group of volunteers carried an extra table into the lapa area and set up cups for beer pong. They had to redo it three times due to an annoyed peahen that kept pushing the cups of the table. It was the usual lapa night madness, but Kurt didn’t feel any need to get caught up in it. He was very content sitting as close as he dared to Blaine on the sofa, sipping a cider while laughing and talking to whichever volunteers and staff who currently occupied the seats around them. Santana and Brittany joined them for a while, but soon moved towards the dance floor. Finn slouched in one of the arm chairs, but got dragged away by Sam and a “Man, you’ve got to see this!” Alex barely had time to sit down before Quinn pulled her up, and they danced away.  
   “Hey Kurt, come on, let’s dance.” The voice sent shivers down Kurt’s spine, and he looked up to see Sebastian standing right in front of him.  
   “I’d rather not.”  
   “Come on, I’ve seen you move those hips. Sitting here is a waste of your talent.”  
   “Let it go, Sebastian, I’m not in the mood. Especially not to dance with you.” Apparently, Sebastian couldn’t take a hint, because he grabbed Kurt’s hand, trying to drag him from the sofa. When Kurt didn’t move, he let go and shrugged.  
   “Fine. Whatever. It’s not like I care.” He left towards the bar.  
   “I wish I could just tell him I have a boyfriend and make him shut up”, Kurt murmured. Blaine put an arm around his waist.  
   “Do you really think that would work on Sebastian?”  
   “Well, no, probably not. But still. I hate not being able to tell anyone.”  
   “I know.” Blaine sighed. ”I wish there was something we could do about it, but I can’t think of anything.”  
   “I know”, Kurt agreed. “And I don’t want you to lose your job. But it still sucks.”  
   “It really sucks”, Blaine agreed. “But except for the part that sucks, life is pretty good right now.”  
   “How come?” Kurt teased. Blaine dropped his voice so that Kurt could barely hear him.  
   “Well, I have a boyfriend who I happen to really like, and in just a couple days we are going away together, to a place where no one will bother us. I looked at hotels earlier, and I found a nice one I think you will like. That is, if… I mean, I hope you want to share a room, but if you don’t…”  
   “Of course I do!” Kurt said, a bit too loud. “I mean”, he said, lowering his voice again, “waking up next to you this morning was wonderful, and it would be even better if I didn’t have to sneak out before dawn…”    “I just think we might be able to arrange that”, Blaine said. Kurt leaned his head against Blaine’s shoulder.  
   They just sat there for a while. Kurt was really too tired to pay attention to what was happening on the dance floor in front of them, and found himself drifting away. Maybe he even fell asleep for a little while, because he felt a bit drowsy when he found Quinn standing in front of them.  
   “I just wanted to tell you that you two are becoming the gossip on the dance floor”, she said in a low voice, turned to Blaine. Kurt realized as she said so that he had cuddled up closer to Blaine, and that Blaine’s arm had sneaked its way around Kurt’s waist again. “You look adorable, and I hate to break that up, but unless you want rumors going around, I suggest you get just a little more discreet. Sorry.”  
   “You’re right”, Blaine said, and, looking at Kurt, added, “you just looked so damn cute, and you’re really cuddly when you sleep, I couldn’t help myself.”  
   “I’m sorry too”, Kurt said. “I know I’ll use anyone as a pillow if I’m tired enough. Not that you weren’t a particularly excellent one”, he added as he saw Blaine’s face, and Blaine chuckled.  
   “Maybe I should get going anyways”, Kurt said after a moment of silence. Quinn had already gone back to Alex on the dance floor.  
   “I could walk you back?” Blaine suggested.  
   “You really shouldn’t”, Kurt said. “That would just make people talk even more. You’d better stay, I’ll see you tomorrow.”  
   Blaine nodded.  
   “Good night.”  
   And with one last quick squeeze of Blaine’s thigh, Kurt left. 

### Friday, eighth week

“I can’t forget to make sure the cheetah waterhole gets cleaned”, Blaine murmured to himself and wrote it down in the calendar. “And Finn must double-check that Martha really is eating. The baboons should be fine for a few days…”  
   “What are you doing?” Quinn asked, as she walked up to his table under the tree.  
   “I’m just checking everything that has to be done before I go to Windhoek, and listing everything that needs to be done while we’re away”, Blaine said. “Could you remind Will that the dirt in Gumby’s enclosure should be turned?”  
   “Smart move, then you won’t have to do it”, Quinn said, laughing as Blaine playfully hit her with the calendar. “Hey!”  
   “You know I will have to do it next time, and probably the time after that.”  
   “If you are still here then”, Quinn said, closing the calendar on the table.  
   “Of course I am”, Blaine said. “Where else would I be?”  
   “Say that again when you come back from Windhoek”, Quinn said, and there was a tinge of sadness in her smile now. “Or when Kurt has left.”  
   Blaine sighed.  
   “It has only been two weeks”, he said. “It’s impossible to say where it’s going, but it’s not realistic to think about quitting or moving across continents to be together after only two weeks.”  
   “If you say so”, Quinn said, standing up again. “I’ll leave you to the planning then.”  
   As she left, Blaine opened the calendar again, staring onto a page for a while and then placing his arms over it, leaning his head against them. 

### Saturday, eighth week

“This one looks a bit weird, but I see a similar track a lot where I came from”, Finn said. Kurt just stared at the ground. It kind of looked like a dinosaur had walked on the path towards the village.  
   “Is it a kangaroo?” Brittany asked excitedly.  
   “Not really”, Finn said, smiling. “Any other guesses?” When the rest of the group stayed silent, he smiled again. “It’s an ostrich. Well, two of them, really. You see, if it would have been an emu, it would have been smaller, and it would have had another claw, right here, but as you know ostriches only have two claws.”  
   Kurt could kind of see how the marks on the ground could be made by the great ugly bird feet, and he had seen ostriches wobbling down this path enough times, chasing each other or a group of volunteers. Moving on, he looked at the bush around him, almost walking straight into Brittany, who had stopped to stare at the ground again.  
   Finn was actually really good at tracking, and had worked in a national park in South Africa for a while, tracking poachers. While walking, he gave them a few tips, both on how to track someone and on how to make it harder for people who were tracking you. It was surprisingly interesting. It sounded easy, to look for footprints and broken branches and turned-over rocks, but when Finn asked them to try to track him, it showed to be a lot harder than expected. After fifteen minutes, he had to jump out from the bushes he was hiding behind, as the group of volunteers were heading in the totally wrong direction.  
   “Oi guys, over here”, he called, and they all spun around, laughing. “I found another track, get over here.”  
   Another track wasn’t, as Kurt had feared, another kind of antelope. He'd seen enough of those. Instead, he found himself staring at something that looked a lot like, well, like a paw print.  
   “Remember how I showed you the hyena tracks earlier, and how there was two lobes at the back of the paw pad, like a heart?” They all nodded. “That goes for all canines. Hyenas, wild dogs, jackals, domestic dogs, even wolves, but you’re not very likely to find them around here. This one, on the other hand, has three lobes at the back of the paw. What do you think that means?”  
   “That it’s not a dog?”  
   “Good. It’s not. Three lobes means it is a cat. Now, do you remember how I pointed out the claw marks on the hyena track?”  
   Again, they all nodded.  
   “Once again, that is something you see on all dog tracks. But not on felines. Any guesses why?”  
   “Because cats retract their claws when they walk?” Kurt hadn’t learned the name of the newbie who answered yet.  
   “Exactly”, Finn said.  
   “But this one has claw marks!” Brittany said, sounding confused.  
   “Exactly”, Finn said again, grinning now. “So what is this?”  
   There was a moment of silence.  
   “It’s a cheetah”, Kurt said as he put the pieces together. “Cheetahs can’t retract their claws because they use them as spikes as they run, right?"  
   Finn nodded, smiling at Kurt.  
   “Correct. That is why cheetah tracks are easily distinguishable. Most other cats are harder, because it’s more difficult to tell if it is a big leopard or a lion cub, and a small serval or a big caracal, at least if you're an amateur tracker. And dogs are harder too, wild dogs and domestic dogs for the untrained eye have almost identical tracks. But as long as you can see the third lobe in the middle back of the paw, and the claw marks, then you know there is a cheetah around.” 

### Sunday, eighth week

 _I have to go for a run._  
   That was the single thought on Blaine’s mind as he woke up, or rather, as he gave up on sleep that morning. The red light seeping through the blinds of the window told him the sun had just barely made it above the horizon. He’d been tossing and turning all night, and he felt exhausted, but hopefully a run would make him stop thinking. He dressed quickly, hopped into his running shoes and set out.  
   He hadn’t even stepped outside when he saw Alex slipping through a door on the opposite side of the small lawn. Quinn’s door, to be specific. Blaine couldn’t help but smile. He’d been suspecting that for a while, and felt happy for Quinn. And for Alex, for that matter. He wondered when they would tell the rest of the staff.

As soon as Alex had disappeared, without noticing Blaine, he started jogging away, opening and closing the three gates before reaching the air strip. Quinn and Alex were lucky, he thought. As coordinators, they were fully entitled to be in a relationship, and no one in the staff would have anything against it. As two girls, it was another matter, but as long as they stayed at the farm Blaine knew they would be accepted in the same way any couple would. Well, any couple except a staff-volunteer-couple.  
   And there it was, the reason Blaine had been awake all night, trying to figure out a way to sort this out. Trying, and failing. Because what he had said to Quinn the other day, about how he and Kurt was only two weeks into their relationship, was absolutely true, and it was too early to say what would happen after Kurt left. But it was also true that what Blaine felt for Kurt wasn’t just what he’d feel for a summer fling. He didn’t want a two-continent, five-or-six-hour-time difference, across-the-atlantic, see-each-other-twice-a-year relationship with Kurt. He wanted a wake-up-every-morning, go-to-bed-at-night, have-dinner-every-evening, hug-and-kiss-and-cuddle kind of relationship. But he couldn’t possibly see how they would be able to have that, unless one of them moved half-way across the world. And somehow, even though he knew Kurt loved this place, this wasn’t where he belonged.  
   Also, there was no future for them in a country where their mere existence was illegal.  
   And Blaine also knew, much too well, that he had a knack for falling too hard too fast. There had been a couple of guys - in high school, but still - whom Blaine had fallen for before he even knew them properly, daydreamed about weddings and kids and futures, and after a couple of months he had realized he’d been wrong all along, that they weren’t really his type at all, or else they had. What he had with Kurt didn’t feel like in high school, but what if it was just another heartbreak waiting to happen? Blaine was aware that to make it work with Kurt when he left Harnas, they would both have to make sacrifices. And Blaine wasn’t sure how much he dared to sacrifice.  
   He jumped, as a group of blue wildebeests came thundering across the sand road. Breathing heavily, he paused as they passed him, and then continued running, increasing his speed a little. Not thinking hadn’t really worked out that well.  
    _I’ll just have to see what happens in Windhoek,_ Blaine thought. _And then we’ll figure out where to go from there._  
   When he reached the farm about half an hour later, sweating heavily in the morning sun, his mind actually felt a bit clearer. The cold water from the shower helped wash away another bit of anxiety, and as he joined the coordinators for the morning meeting, he actually felt _almost_ like a human being.

### Tuesday, eighth week

It was time.  
   Kurt’s suitcase was just as big but not as heavy as when he had arrived at Harnas. Packing for Windhoek hadn’t been easy, seeing as he didn’t have too much to choose from and barely anything he would want to wear off the farm. Definitely nothing he could wear on a date. Maybe there would be time for some shopping.  
   Blaine had parked right in front of the village lapa area. Kurt was surprised but pleased to see they would travel in a regular car, not the jeeps with cages in the back he had gotten used to. He put his suitcase in the back, next to Blaine's a lot smaller backpack, and sat down in the passenger seat since Blaine was going to drive.  
   "Ready for civilization?" Blaine asked.  
   "Oh yes", Kurt said with a big grin. "I don't care how awesome this place is, I am dying for a real coffee. Are there any stops on the way?"  
   "We'll have a short break in Gobabis, if you don't mind", Blaine said. "That's a couple hours, but I don't think there is any good, or even decent coffee closer than that."  
   "Let's go, then", Kurt said. "Come on, I've been waiting long enough for this!"  
   Blaine laughed.  
   "I don't think I've ever seen a volunteer this eager to leave", he joked, and started the engine as he did.  
   "I don't think I'll be this eager in a few weeks, but now I just want us to get going", Kurt said. "Real coffee, a warm room to sleep in, hot water in the showers..."  
   "Time all to ourselves?" Blaine filled in.  
   "Oh, right, that too", Kurt said, and Blaine playfully hit his arm. Kurt answered by kissing his cheek, as they left the village and started driving up the runway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaand... they're off! Which means there will be a lot of Klaine to look forwards to in the next chapter! After this one, can any of you tell me what kind of pawprints I use for the change of point of views?
> 
> I'm posting this a little earlier than usual since I start working my first ever night shift right about now. Which means I'm hoping that you guys and your comments will help me stay awake ;)


	13. Chapter 13

### Tuesday, eighth week

Can't you just tell me where we're going?"  
   Kurt was ridiculously adorable when he was curious, and Blaine didn't want to take that expression off his face. He was standing in front of the mirror, trying to get his bowtie even, and Kurt was half dressed, digging through his suitcase for something to wear. They had been at the embassy all afternoon, dealing with papers and passports and too many people, but finally the visa was fixed, and Blaine couldn't wait to take Kurt out on their first real date.  
   "Please? Let me at least know what to expect!"  
   "Okay", Blaine agreed, "I'll give you some hints. It's not very fancy, more of a touristy kind of place , but it has amazing food and you can't really visit Windhoek and not go there. It's also the most iconic restaurant in Namibia, if not in all of southern Africa. It might even be the most iconic place in the southern hemisphere!"  
   Kurt laughed.  
   "You're cute when you get all excited, you know that?"  
   Blaine finally got his bowtie right, and gave Kurt a kiss on the cheek.  
   "Come on, now, the cab will be here any minute."  
   "But I have nothing to wear!" Kurt threw yet another t-shirt on the bed. "I didn't really pack for a date, you know, I packed for the African bush."  
   "What about the button-down you wore on lapa night the other night? I liked that one, you looked great!"  
   "It's just so... plain. And I've already worn it once", Kurt complained, and then stopped for a second. "But maybe if I pair it up with... yeah, that could actually work."

"Wow", Kurt whispered as a waitress showed them to a table indoors, near a big fireplace. Blaine looked back at him and smiled.  
   "Told you it was iconic."  
   The place had been his favorite ever since his first stay in Windhoek. The decoration was very over the top, with things precisely everywhere. In the ceiling, there was everything from stuffed animals to cart wheels and old cans. The walls were filled with pictures, wooden sculptures and hunting trophies. As far as he could see in both directions, there was a shelf covered with green jägermeister bottles. It was crazy, in every sense of the word. It also had a very welcoming feel to it.  
   "What do you think?" Blaine asked, as the waitress went to get them some menues.  
   "It's... wow. I don't even know where to start looking, it's just so much! It should have been tacky, and awful, except it's... not. "  
   Blaine just laughed. "I know, I think I've been here like fifteen times, and I still find new stuff to look at every time I go here. Have you seen the giraffe?"  
   The waitress returned with their menus, and Kurt started looking through it. Blaine already knew exactly what to order, but he found pleasure in watching Kurt's face as he read through some of the courses.    "There's zebra? Can you actually eat that? And springbok? Blaine, what the fuck is a mieliepap croquette? It's not like the mieliepap we feed the baboons, right? 'Cause I'm _not_ eating that."    Kurt looked up, to give Blaine a chance to answer, but noticed that Blaine hadn't even opened his own menu.  
   "What are you having? I have no idea, there are just so much to choose from."  
   "I'm having the oryx platter, that's my absolute favorite and the mushroom sauce is to die for. But for you, I'd recommend the Bushman Sosatie."  
   Kurt shuffled through the pages again, until he found the course Blaine was talking about.  
   "Springbok, kudu, oryx, zebra and _crocodile_?"  
   "A good chance to get to try all of it, right?"  
   "You're insane. But okay, fine, it's your fault if I die."

The way from the elevator to their room was way too long. Kurt felt like he had eaten enough for an entire week, and was so full he could barely move. They had had a wonderful evening, easy-going conversations about this and that, playful flirting, a couple nice glasses of wine and great food (even if the crocodile hadn't really been Kurt's cup of tea). The only down-side had been having to act like friends all night, not being able to kiss, or flirt too openly, or even hold hands as long as they were in public. Even though they we're used to that by now, it was still annoying.  
   The wine had given Kurt a nice, warm feeling in his entire body, and now he couldn't wait to just get to the room and cuddle up with Blaine. When Blaine opened their door, Kurt dropped down straight on the bed.  
   "I'm not moving another inch."  
   "Good." Blaine said, removing first his shoes and then Kurt's, before sitting down next to Kurt and wrapping an arm around his waist. "You're exactly where I want you."  
   Kurt answered by kissing him softly but deeply, letting one hand trail Blaine's cheek and the other one hide in his hair, pressing them closer together.  
   "I've missed you", Blaine whispered between kisses.  
   "We've been together all night!" Kurt smiled, and they leaned back simultaneously, ending up lying down.  
   "Not enough!" Blaine pouted, making Kurt smile even wider. "I haven't been able to do this", he stroke Kurt's cheek, "or this", he sneaked his hand inside Kurt's t-shirt and up his stomach, "or this." They kissed, turning towards each other as they did so, wrapping their bodies closer together. It was unlike their other kisses, not quick and watchful. Kurt felt himself slip away, loosing himself completely in Blaine's lips, his touch, the way he made Kurt feel. Kurt started trailing Blaine's face with his kisses, down his jaw and neck, down to the collar bone, as far as Blaine's button-down would allow him to go. Blaine drew sharp breath as Kurt kept exploring and found a particularly sensitive spot behind his right ear. The pleasure Kurt experienced just by hearing that sound was incredible, and he felt it spread throughout his body. Blaine's hands had found their way up Kurt's fitted t-shirt, feeling cool but nice on his heated skin.  
   It took another while before clothes started to come off. Kurt carefully unbuttoned Blaine's shirt, while Blaine just pulled Kurt's over his head. Their pants were off just minutes later.  
   "Are you sure about this?" Blaine asked, breaking another heated kiss, hot skin against skin now. Kurt loved that Blaine asked, even though Kurt's behavior as he tugged Blaine's boxers downwards must have made the answer pretty obvious.  
   "I'm sure", he said, never having been more honest. "Are you?"  
   "Absolutely."

### Wednesday, eighth week

The first thing Blaine noticed when he woke up was the silence. He could feel that he had slept longer than usual, which meant the farm should have been buzzing with noises at this hour. Whichever the hour was.  
   The second thing he noticed was that he was naked. And it was with that realization that yesterday came back to him. He slowly turned around, careful to not wake Kurt. The blue eyes that met his told him that was a bit too late.  
   "Good morning, sleepyhead", Kurt smiled, placing a kiss on Blaine's forehead.  
   "Morning", Blaine said, stifling a yawn. "Have you been up long?"  
   "Not too long", Kurt said. "Just about an hour or so."  
   "You could have woken me", Blaine said, stroking a strand of Kurt's hair from his face. "I'm sorry, I'm a late sleeper."  
   "I've kind of been enjoying just being here." Kurt gestured around them. "No hurrying out before anyone sees us, no hiding. I've been able to lay here and just be. You're cute when you sleep."  
   Blaine pouted. "When I sleep, huh?"  
   "Well, not just when you sleep. But you look so peaceful, it makes me feel like everything is going to be all right."  
   "Why wouldn't it?"  
   "I don't know. I just... we still haven't figured out how we are going to handle this when I leave. I know you'd rather not talk about it, and honestly, I'd rather not either, but it kind of worries me, and it's hard not to think about. Especially this morning, it's been difficult not to think about how much I want this for us, and how much this is something we won't be able to have."  
   "I know." The smile that had been on Blaine's face since waking up faded a little. "But we'll figure it out, you know. It's going to be fine, we'll make it work."  
   "I know." They kissed softly. 

It took them more than an hour to drag themselves out of bed, and almost another hour before they were showered and dressed. Not that they were really in a hurry anywhere, but they entered the room with the breakfast buffet just fifteen minutes before it closed. Thankfully, there were enough food left for them to fill their plates with everything they wanted. Blaine studied Kurt with a smile, noticing the smallest details. Like how he picked out the least crispy bits of bacon, preferred his eggs fried to scrambled and loved pineapple but didn't like melon. Like how he picked seats for them by the window even though the view was just a road crossing, and bounced up and down like an over-excited squirrel when he saw the coffee machine. Not that that last part had been very surprising. What surprised Blaine was how every new thing he noticed about Kurt managed to make him even more endearing. He hoped that one day, he would be able to cook breakfast for Kurt, and earn that adorable smile that was on his face right now, and...  
   "Blaine? Earth to Blaine? Aren't you going to eat?"  
   "Oh, sorry", Blaine said, snapping out of his thoughts.  
   "You don't have to apologize", Kurt laughed. "Although it does seem to be a waste on that croissant."  
   Blaine chuckled. That was another thing, he realized. He hadn't noticed before how Kurt always made him laugh.  
   "I guess I'd better eat it, then", he said. "It looks too good to be wasted."

They spent their day in bed. Kurt wasn't really sure how that decision had been made, he only knew that he didn't regret it one bit. Going out would have meant acting like friends, and if there was anything he didn't want, it was that. They had such a short time to revel in each other's company, he didn't really feel like giving any of those hours up for sightseeing, or shopping, or anything else Windhoek had to offer. Instead, they alternated between watching whatever bad movie they could find on the hotels cable network, making out, and talking. They kept the topic light, sharing stories from home, talking about the animals and people on Harnas, the things they would have known about each other already, had their relationship been anything like an ordinary one. It was absolutely wonderful, having the chance and the time to actually get to know each other a little bit better. Kurt especially appreciated to get to know a bit more about Blaine's life before Harnas. He found out that Blaine had been in a glee club in high school, just as Kurt had, and they spent some time sharing their memories from that. It seemed they had had quite different experiences, but the glee clubs had had similar roles in their lives, a way to escape reality for a while. He learned that Blaine's relationship with his parents sometimes was a bit strained, and that it actually worked out a lot better with Blaine on the other side of the world, when their contact was based on a skype call once a month or so. Blaine also talked about his older brother, whom, despite their many differences and frequent arguments still was the person Blaine missed the most from home.  
   They skipped lunch, still full from the late breakfast, and didn't get hungry until early evening. Kurt kissed his way up from Blaine's bellybutton up to his throat, getting small gasps as a response from Blaine.  
   "I know I said I'd take you on a date tonight", Kurt said, "but honestly, I don't want to have to leave this room."  
   "I know what you mean", Blaine said. "I don't want to have to pretend to be your friend the entire night, and I don't really want you to have to put a shirt on, either, if I can choose."  
   "I'd researched this Indian restaurant where I thought we could go", Kurt said, "If we were in New York, I'd cook something for us instead, but I can't really do that here."  
   "I guess..." Blaine said, and then starting over. "I feel a little bad for suggesting, because this night was yours to plan, but we could order room service?"  
   Kurt thought for a second. There was something about picnic in the room that sounded a lot more romantic than a pretend-platonic date in some unknown restaurant.  
   "That sounds amazing", he said. "We might have to wear shirts and pretend to be friends for fifteen seconds while receiving the food, but after that..."  
   Blaine chuckled.  
   "I like the way you think."

### Thursday, eighth week

They were in bed, again. Not that Blaine in any way regretted spending all day yesterday there, and he didn't really mind it now either. They were laying in silence, wrapped up together, with Kurt's head on Blaine's chest and his fingers softly drawing patterns on Blaine's bare stomach.  
   "Do..." Kurt broke the silence, stopping himself, and seemed to rearrange the question before starting over. "Do you think there are things we are made to do? Do you believe there is a higher purpose for every one of us?"  
   Blaine was surprised by the question and had to think for a moment before answering.  
   "Not really", he finally said. "I don't think there are things we are born to do, but I think life has a way of pushing us in a direction where we'll grow. We just don't always understand it, and we don't always listen."  
   "I don't believe in religion", Kurt said. "And I don't believe in destiny, or faith, or whatever. I've always thought we shape our own futures, and the only way to get where you want to go is to keep walking forwards. But ever since I came to Harnas, I can't stop feeling like I'm at this place that is so unexpected for me, and it still feels like I am where I am supposed to be, in this very moment of my life. I hope that when I leave I will finally be strong enough to go home and pursue my dreams."  
   Blaine felt a sting of jealousy at those words, but also a burst of pride, and a little bit of hope.  
   "You will", he said, with absolute certainty. "And I hope that one day, I will too."  
   Kurt looked at him, with something unreadable in his eyes.  
   "Would you want to leave?" he asked. "Go back to the US?"  
   Blaine stayed silent for a few seconds, trying to put his thoughts into understandable sentences.  
   "If you'd asked me eight weeks ago, I would have said no, without a doubt", he started. "My life has been at Harnas for the last year, the last three years, really, even though I wasn't always living there. It has been the best experience of my life. But now, I don't know. There are parts of me that never ever want to leave this place, that want to laugh with volunteers and climb trees with leopard cubs and baboons and clean out enclosures 'til I'm eighty. But then..."  
   He fell silent again, only barely believing what he was going to say.  
   "Then there are parts of me that feel like it's time to go back to reality. I kind of feel like Harnas is just a dream, and sometimes I think that it's time for me to wake up soon. I should get myself back to the US, take up my studies, get a job somewhere. I still have things I want to do in my life, things that I can't do here. I want to make music, I've always wanted to make music. To write and produce my own songs, to have people listening to and relating to words that I wrote, to help them get through tough times by sharing my own experiences in melodies and lyrics. I still want to make a difference, only in a different way than I'm doing here."  
   "So why don't you?" Kurt asked. "You could, you know. I've heard you singing, you're amazing, Blaine. I don't know anything about your songwriting, but with your voice, I'm pretty sure your music would sell even if it sucked."  
   "It probably sucks", Blaine agreed. "I don't know anything about writing music. They talked a bit about it in my first weeks at NYU, but it all sounded like greek to me. I've always just written whatever feels right."    "Do you... is there anything I can hear?" Kurt asked. "Anything you can sing for me?"  
   Blaine froze for a second. The thought terrified him, Kurt's opinion mattered _so much_ and he wasn't prepared. But then the lyrics came into his mind, and he knew what to sing. Before he could change his mind, he started humming.

_♪Have you ever felt like you woke up_  
on the wrong side of your heart?  
Has it ever felt like it's broken,  
like the world tore it apart?  
Have you felt so weak,  
you could hardly stand,  
like if you ever fell,  
you could never tell  
if you'd ever get back up again?  
  
I know it's hard to do,  
but I think you can make it  
cause I know we can take it  
  
Baby, we will  
rise  
We are young, we are the dreamers, we will fly  
When the world will not believe us,  
we will rise above the ashes,  
before this whole life passes us by  
You and I, we will rise♫

The silence that met Blaine when he stopped singing was deafening. He didn't dare to look at Kurt, so he kept his eyes fixed on his knees. At least until his line of sight was covered by an arm, reaching to put two fingers under his chin, lifting it slowly. His eyes met Kurt's, which were filled with tears.  
   "That was _beautiful_ ", he breathed. "You're _so_ talented, Blaine. It would be a shame not to let the world hear that."  
   "I want to", Blaine said. "But honestly..."  
   "Honestly what, Blaine?"  
   "Leaving the farm, it terrifies me. I've done it twice, and both times it's ended in disasters, one worse than the other. I told you once that I was depressed when I got back from my second stay here, and that I couldn't get out of bed. I didn't exaggerate that, there were days where I literally couldn't. I am lucky it was a good day when my plane left, or I don't even think my parents could have dragged me to the airport. It took weeks, even at Harnas, before I started functioning even remotely like an ordinary human being, and I still deal with the aftermath of that sometimes. What if it happens again? What if I quit here, go back to the US, and just break again? I don't think I can get through that."  
   "You can", Kurt said. "You're strong, Blaine, a lot stronger than you think, and if you break again, I'll be there, every step of the way, helping you through it. I know we haven't talked much about the future, but if you decide that it's time for you to move back and try your dreams again, I'll be there to support you, every step of the way."  
   "I wish I could say that I'll go with you, and go back to the US, apply for uni again and give that life another try", Blaine said, his voice almost breaking. "But just the thought of it scares me to death, Kurt, and I'm not sure I'm ready for that yet."  
   "Someone once told me that fear is temporary but regret is forever", Kurt said, and Blaine hated himself for ever using those words. "But Blaine?"  
   Blaine met his eyes again, blinking a couple times.  
   "Yes?"  
   "If you realize that you aren't ready to go back yet, and that you want to stay at Harnas... I'll support your decision, no matter what it is. As long as it feels right for you, that's what is most important."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the response on the last chapter! As most of you guessed, it is cheetah pawprints that separate the different points of view. I hope you enjoyed this chapter as well, apparently my beta cried a little while reading it so I guess I did something right? We are nearing the end of the story, only two more chapters (and an epilogue) to go!
> 
> Let me know what you think! :)


	14. Chapter 14

### Friday, ninth week

Waking up by from the lions again felt strange, yet pleasantly familiar. They had only been away for three days, and still it felt like a lifetime had passed since that Tuesday morning. They had driven straight to the village the night before, and despite being tired, Kurt was eager to see the farm again. He got out of bed, careful not to wake his roommates, and pulled on a pair of jeans, a t-shirt and the hoodie that he would have never ever worn at home but that had become his favorite item of clothing here. Soon entering June, the weather had gotten a lot colder since Kurt arrived. Especially during the nights and early mornings.  
   He grabbed his small backpack and a toothbrush, and headed towards the farm. Breakfast wasn't for another half an hour, but he wanted to say hi to Audrey before his day got busy. He had made a habit of visiting the vervet monkey a short while every day and had missed her when he was gone.  
   The different gates opened easily, his hands now so used to every lock and clasp. He crossed the lawn in the pattern he knew would keep him out of the sprinklers way, and found the monkey sitting on her favorite spot on the roof of her house. As he started talking to her, she raised her head and turned it to figure out from which direction his voice was coming.  
   After about fifteen minutes in the monkey enclosure, he took a short walk around the rest of the farm. Most of it looked like it had done when he left it, although there was a new enclosure in progress over by the meerkats and the duck pond seemed to have been cleaned out. Other than that, everything was just as before.  
   It wasn't until breakfast that he realized it was Friday, and that it meant people had left yesterday. A lot of people, judging from the empty spots by the tables. Santana and Brittany weren't leaving for another week, and had saved him a seat, but there were still a few familiar faces missing. He felt a bit sad to see Carly had gone. She was the last one of the group that arrived with him, so without her, Kurt was the volunteer who had been on the farm for the longest time now. It was a hard concept to grasp, even though it felt like he'd been there forever. 

"So what you're saying is that _none of it_ has been done?"  
   "Well, we did clean the cheetah waterhole", Finn said.  
   "I did that right before I left", Blaine groaned. "It was the leopards that needed new water."  
   "We can't really send the volunteers in there anymore", Finn protested. "I know Gabbana is like a house cat to you, but he's getting huge, you know, and Dolce can be sneaky as hell."  
   "I'll do that at lunch, then", Blaine sighed. "How about Gumbi's enclosure?"  
   "Well, we got started, but... you know how he is, only accepts company for a little while at a time. But Will has got you on that in the afternoon."  
   "Of course he does. So what is that enclosure over at the meerkats?"  
   "It's for the new pangolin we got the other day."  
   "We got a _pangolin_?"  
   "A farmer brought it in, it's leg was stuck in a trap. Marieta said they're really endangered and stuff, but she thinks this one will be okay. It's in the nursery now, but I'm going to grab some people and finish it's enclosure this afternoon."  
   Blaine left the conversation feeling a little bit stressed. One of the reasons that he didn't like leaving the farm was that he never knew what would get done while he was away. The pangolin was an interesting addition to the farm, however, and he was excited to check on that.  
   He knew Kurt was in foodprep, and decided that checking the pangolin might as well be his first priority, seeing as the nursery was right next to the foodprep area. He knew it was silly, but after having a chance to be together for real, even if it had just been for a short while, even the couple of hundred yards that separated them felt like much too big a distance now. 

### Tuesday, ninth week

Drumming on the tin roof sent Kurt running towards the nearest enclosure, with Santana close behind him. They had been resting in the shade after cleaning enclosures all morning, but apparently that rest was over. They entered the aviary, careful to lock the gate behind them, and first after that dared to try to see which baboon (or at least how big a baboon) was causing the noises. When they saw the green-clad workers gathering by the building, they knew it was a big one, and figured out they might as well take a seat in the big bird enclosure while they waited. The big baboons was not to be handled by anyone except the employed locals.  
   "God, I'm going to miss these sudden adrenaline rushes", Santana said, and Kurt was just a tiny bit surprised to hear her admit it.  
   "I know", he said. "I can't believe tomorrow is your last day!"  
   "Me neither", she agreed. "You'd think five weeks is such a long time, but it's not. Brit is crushed, already talking about going back here." There was a softness on her face, one that Kurt rarely saw her with when Brittany wasn't around.  
   "I'm going to miss you", Kurt said honestly.  
   "If you cry on Thursday, I'm going to kick your ass."  
   "Oh, trust me, I won't" Kurt lied. "But it is going to be weird without you. Even though I am happy I have another three weeks."  
   "Fuck you", Santana murmured. "But I guess you and your hobbit could need a little more time before you go all long-distance, huh?"  
   "Yeah, a couple more years wouldn't hurt", Kurt tried to joke, but he was pretty sure Santana didn't believe his faked smile. "Do you think we're safe yet?"  
   They looked over to where the staff seemed to have caught the baboon, but then saw volunteers running from a different direction, saying something about another baboon. Kurt's fake smile turned real.  
   "Never a dull moment here, expect the unexpected and all that. I don't know if there is any place like this anywhere!"  
   "Be glad you get to stay for another few weeks", Santana said. "Cheetahs, baboons, who knows what more you will have seen escape before you leave?"  
   "It's not that bad", Kurt laughed. "I talked to Blaine about it, he said it's just been a few really eventful weeks."  
   "Yeah, and of course he was talking about the escaping animals."  
   Kurt blushed.  
   "Shut up."

### Thursday, tenth week

"It feels a bit like I'm about to meet your parents."  
   Blaine laughed.  
   "Well, at least _my_ 'parents' don't have a shotgun."  
   "Just razer-sharp claws and the ability to break my neck. That's soothing."  
   Blaine unlocked the leopard enclosure, and pushed Gabbana aside so that Kurt could enter. After saying goodbye to Santana and Brittany this morning, Kurt had been a bit down, and Blaine had decided it was finally time for Kurt to get to visit the leopards. They had been taken off regular volunteer contact a couple weeks ago, seeing as they were now pretty big, but volunteers were still allowed to enter accompanied by a coordinator.  
   "They are so much softer than the cheetahs", Kurt commented, as he stroke the big cats back.  
   "I know", Blaine said. "Their fur is thicker, too."  
   They moved further into the enclosure, to get out of sight, or at least earshot, from most of the people resting on the lawns. Blaine sat down cross-legged with his back against a tree trunk, Gabbana licking his face straight away. Kurt remained standing.  
   "It's okay, Gabbana wouldn't ever do anything", Blaine said. "Come on, we're far enough away to cuddle!" He put on a very exaggerated pout, and kept it up until Kurt laughed and sat down beside him. Blaine slipped an arm around his waist, and Gabbana moved to wash Kurt's shoulder's with his tongue.  
   "I'm going to miss this guy", Blaine said, scratching the leopard's chin.  
   "Where are you going?" Kurt asked, sounding surprised, and Blaine elaborated.  
   "I'm not going anywhere. But Will told me on the morning meeting that the management had decided to build new, bigger enclosures for them out by the other leopards, and they are almost finished already. Gabbana is going on his last walk on Sunday morning, and after that, they are being moved straight to their new enclosures, with no more human interaction except through the fence.  
   "Blaine", Kurt said, the name filled with more emotion than Blaine thought was possible. "I know how much you love this leopard, but it's going to be nice for him to get his own enclosure, at least?"  
   "Yes, I know it's for the best", Blaine agreed. "But he is going to miss the walks. So am I."  
   "Are you going on Sunday?" Kurt asked.  
   Blaine nodded.  
   "Quinn and I will both go, and bring a small group of volunteers. I want you to be one of them."  
   "I'd love to", Kurt said, "but wouldn't that be a bit unfair to the other volunteers? There are going to be loads of people who want to go."  
   "Everyone will want to go", Blaine agreed. "I think Will was talking about maybe taking the team leaders, as a treat. But you've been here long enough that I think I can convince them to let you come too. Honestly... I want you there, not only because I want you to get the chance to experience this. I want you there because I'm not sure how I'll... I think I will need the support. I'm going to miss him so much."  
   The leopard put his heavy head in Blaine's lap, stretching his front paws on Kurt's leg, and the three of them sat there in silence.  
   "We could tell them", Blaine said. Judging from the look on Kurt's face, he was not following Blaine's thoughts at all. Which was pretty understandable, seeing as Blaine had just made an abrupt change of topic, but the thought had just never occurred to him before.  
   "We could tell the staff about us", he explicated. "The coordinators, and maybe the management too."  
   Kurt just stared at him.  
   "Are you nuts? Wouldn't they fire you?"  
   "I don't know", Blaine said. "Possibly. Probably. But I'm so _sick_ of having to hide us from everyone. And I'm thinking that if they found out, I'd rather they heard it from me than from anyone else. If we told them together, at least they would see that it's both of us. One of the biggest reasons that we are not allowed to have relationships with the volunteers is that since we are in a power position, they don't want anyone to take advantage of that. But maybe, just maybe, if they saw that what we have is real..."  
   His heart was racing a bit from having uttered those words. He didn't really know if it was going to work, or even if it was a good idea, or even if he wanted to try it. The thought itself made him nervous.  
   "I guess we could", Kurt said. "But we really don't have to. I mean, I hate hiding, too, but I don't want you to risk your job here for us not having to be careful for three weeks, if you doubt it being a good idea. At least we should think about it first."  
   "Yes, I wasn't planning on telling anyone anything today", Blaine agreed. "But the thought just hit me that we could, and that it might actually help us. I hadn't thought about it that way before."  
   Kurts eyes darted around quickly, and then he gave Blaine a quick kiss, turning without disturbing the leopard laying across their laps.

### Sunday, tenth week

"Okay, so I want you guys to get on the roof", Quinn said, as Blaine got out of the car where he had just loaded Gabbana. "We aren't going to have you in such a cramped space with him... And with that I mean Gabbana, not Blaine."  
   They all laughed.  
   "Not that he would ever do anything." As usual, Blaine was quick to defend the leopard. "And neither would I, by the way." Kurt raised an eyebrow at him, and Blaine seemed to fight laughter.  
   "We'll drive out to the walking area", Quinn cut in, "and you can walk with him as soon as we let him out."  
   Kurt joined the four other volunteers on the rooftop, letting his legs dangle off one side and grabbing on to the edges as they drove towards the walking area. In his now ten weeks at Harnas, he had done every activity possible at least twice, but the leopard walk was something new, and he was excited but also a bit anxious. He knew how difficult this would be for Blaine, and knew that with people all around them, he wouldn't really be able to support and comfort him in the way he'd wanted to.  
   They stopped where they usually walked the cheetahs, and let Gabbana out of the car immediately. The young leopard seemed strangely uncomfortable with its new surroundings, looking around and smelling the ground over and over again before walking over towards the thicker bush on the side of the dirt road.  
   "As on any other walk, we'll just follow him and let him have a good time", Blaine instructed. "He'll probably walk around and explore, climb some nice trees, and then take a nap somewhere."  
   "As you know, leopards aren't as chill as the cheetahs", Quinn reminded. "The biggest difference, except from the tree-climbing, is that they are solitary animals. That means that they don't have the same ways to communicate, because they haven't got the same need to. A leopard doesn't warn you the way a cheetah does if it gets annoyed with you. So be careful, okay?"  
   A nap didn't seem to be Gabbanas top priority. He had them walking around for almost an hour. Kurt fell in step with Blaine, in the back of the group, and made sure they were a few yards behind the rest before he asked:  
   "Are you okay?"  
   Blaine nodded.  
   "Better than I thought I'd be, actually. I guess I haven't really caught up with it yet. It's like it's just another walk. And I guess for him it is. He doesn't know."  
   Kurt gave Blaine's hand a quick squeeze.  
   "He's going to be fine", he said. "And you can still see him, almost every day on outside feeding. I know it won't be the same, but it will be okay, and it's good for him. More of a normal leopard life."  
   "I know", Blaine said. "And look at him out here. This is how his life should be. And if he can't have real freedom, I guess a bigger enclosure is the least we can do for him. He deserves the best."  
   In front of them, the group had stopped under a big acacia. With just a few graceful leaps, Gabbana made it half-way up the tree onto a nice branch. He stretched out on it with his paws dangling, apparently ready for the nap after all.  
   The group settled on the ground beneath the tree. Most of the group, anyways. Blaine was closest to the tree trunk, and after a few seconds of carefully studying it, he turned to Kurt.  
   "Will you help me reach that branch?"  
   And after a few failed tries, with only one of them ending with both of them on the ground laughing, Blaine actually managed to get up in the tree. He tried pulling Kurt up too, but Kurt preferred to remain safely on the ground, and instead went to get his small camera. He hadn't taken nearly enough pictures, and if this was the last walk Blaine was going to go on with Gabbana, at least it should be well documented. Kurt was far from a master photographer, but managed to get some good shots of Blaine and the leopard, peacefully resting together among the branches. After a while, Quinn took his camera.  
   "Get up there", she said, and then added in a low voice, "You'll want those pictures later."  
   Of course she had a point. Since Kurt was quite a bit taller than Blaine, he managed to get up with only a little help, and soon found a place not too far to Blaine and Gabbana.  
   The volunteers then took turns climbing up and down the tree, taking pictures of the leopard and of themselves with the leopard. Blaine got down when Kurt did, taking the last almost two yards in a jump. He hadn't said much. Thankfully, Kurt wasn't the only one who had noticed.  
   "Blaine?" It was Quinn, of course. "Would you mind taking a look on the fence in the corner that Finn was talking about?" Kurt had rarely been so glad to hear her.  
   It took a second before Blaine caught on, but then he got it.  
   "Of course", he said, standing up straight away. "The fence thing, I'll check on that. Kurt, would you come with me? Or did you want to take some more pictures?"  
   "I've got all the pictures I could possibly need", Kurt said, knowing Blaine only asked to keep up the act. "So sure, I'll come with you."  
   They walked in silence for only a minute, enough to get far away from the others.  
   "There is no fence thing, is there?" Kurt asked.  
   "No", Blaine said. "That was just Quinn being a genius. As usual."  
   Kurt stopped, taking Blaine's hand.  
   "Are you okay?" He knew he had asked this only about half an hour ago, but the answer seemed to have changed.  
   "I'm..." As Blaine fell silent, Kurt pulled him into a hug, and Blaine buried his face in Kurt's chest.  
   "It's not even Gabbana", he said after a few deep breaths. "Or well, it's that too. I'm going to miss him so very much. But I'm still going to see him every day, still going to cuddle with him through the fence, still going to know how he's doing. With you, in just a few weeks, I won't have that."  
   And Kurt finally realized that in Blaine's mind, the two separations were connected. It was difficult, because he loved Gabbana, but it was also difficult because it was only one of the two big goodbyes Blaine would have to say. He hugged Blaine even tighter, forcing the tears that suddenly rose in his eyes to stay there. Blaine, he kept telling himself, was his main priority. He could deal with his own feelings later.  
   "We still have two weeks", he said, proud of how steady he managed to keep his voice. "And we'll figure it out after that, too. "Two weeks is a long time."

### Wednesday, tenth week

Two weeks was a long time. Two weeks that was supposed to be theirs, for their relationship to grow, for them to find their places in each other's lives. So when these two weeks suddenly were ripped from them, taken by the world and crumbled to dust, staying strong wasn't an easy task.  
   Blaine could see it from the moment Kurt set his foot on the lawn after lunch that Wednesday. There was something in the posture. He was broken. Absolutely, completely torn into pieces. Blaine hurried to meet him, and Kurt didn't even seem aware of the people around them. He just threw his arms around Blaine's neck.  
   "Hey", Blaine said softly. "Hey, it's okay, it's all going to be okay." He kept whispering calming words into Kurt's ear, begging for the to be true, but they didn't seem to reach Kurt at all.  
   "It's..." Kurt finally managed, between sobs, but he couldn't get any further. Blaine was so worried now that he didn't know if he even wanted to hear what Kurt was going to tell him, but he knew that he couldn't let his anxiety show. Kurt needed to calm down a bit if he was going to be able to tell Blaine anything at all. And to make Kurt calm down, Blaine had to remain calm too.  
   "It's all going to be okay", Blaine repeated, stroking Kurt's hair with steady hands. "Whatever it is, we'll figure it all out. Everything is going to be fine."  
   "It's my dad", Kurt finally managed. The tone almost made Blaine's knees give way. "He had another heart attack."  
   "Oh god" Blaine said. "Is he... I mean..."  
   "He's alive", Kurt said, and Blaine let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding. "He's in the hospital."  
   "Oh god", Blaine said again, his brain unable to construct any longer sentences than that.  
   "He's stable", Kurt said. He seemed to have found the words now, because they all came spilling from him. "Carole found him, thank god she works night shifts on Tuesdays. The ambulance got there, and got him stable, they says it's too soon to tell but he'll probably be okay, but... Blaine, I have to be there."  
   New tears were still falling down Kurt's cheeks, and more formed as he spoke the words.  
   "I know", Blaine said. It was all he could say.  
   "I have to be there", Kurt repeated. "Even if they says he's going to be okay, it's my dad. He's the only one I have, and he only has me. And Carole, but still. He needs me, and I need to be there for him."  
   The next sentence was the one that really made Blaine's life crumble.  
   "I rebooked my flight, Blaine. I'm leaving tomorrow morning."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry!


	15. Chapter 15

### Wednesday, tenth week

Since Kurt hadn't known he was leaving, he hadn't packed. And during the afternoon that followed, packing just wasn't priority. He managed to pull himself together after a while, finally accepting that he wasn't going to be able to do anything for his father until he got home. Carole, who he'd been in contact with through the office, had promised to keep him posted through email, so Kurt didn't want to go outside the farm's wifi range.  
   After telling Blaine, he didn't feel like going to the afternoon meeting. He knew that Blaine would tell the coordinators, and that no one would miss him, so instead he searched for some place quiet. Unsurprisingly, he ended up in Audrey's enclosure. The small vervet seemed to feel his pain, because she sat in his lap, holding his hand, and just listened when he spoke to her. She was a good listener, for a monkey.  
   Kurt spoke. And cried. He spoke about his father, of course, and about his first heart attack. He spoke about his mother, about losing her and about not having her in his life. And he spoke about Blaine. About finding him, and about leaving him.  
   He didn't know how long had passed when the actual Blaine showed up outside. It wasn't until then that Kurt noticed he had stopped crying.  
   "I thought I'd find you here", Blaine said, stepping inside and giving the monkey a pat on the back before sitting down beside Kurt. "How are you feeling?"  
   "Better", Kurt said. "It's just... this wasn't how it was supposed to be, Blaine."  
   "I know", Blaine said, wrapping Kurt into an embrace which turned out a bit awkward due to their positions on the bench. Not to mention the monkey in Kurt's lap.  
   "Are you coming to lion roars?" Blaine asked, after a few moments of silence.  
   "I don't know", Kurt said honestly. "I guess I should, I just..."  
   Lion roars was a tradition for the leaving volunteers. Kurt wasn't quite sure what it was, he only knew that it was something that everybody talked about as fantastic and memorable.  
   "Come", Blaine said. "I'm going, too. It's kind of a.. it's hard to explain, but it's kind of a way to come to terms with leaving. And it's a nice experience, you don't want to miss it."  
   "I guess I should", Kurt said again. "When are we going?"  
   "In about fifteen minutes", Blaine said. "I need to do a few things before that, but I'll see you in the car-park, then?."  
   Kurt nodded.  
   "See you soon."  
   Kurt spent the last minutes checking his emails for the thousandth time that afternoon, and then gently helping Audrey get down from his lap and back to her house. As he closed her door, he realized he might actually not see her again. Even if, even _when_ he came back, she might not be here. She was already a lot older than was expected for such a small monkey.  
   "Goodbye, sweetie", Kurt whispered, trying to keep his voice steady. "And thank you."  
   He left, knowing it was only the first of the goodbyes he would have to say in the following 24 hours. He tried, and failed, not to think about it.

Blaine entered the lapa with a fake smile on his face that night. The lion roars had been a bit of a failure, as they were once in a while. They had been sitting in a circle on the ground, right outside the corner of three lion enclosures, eight fully grown lions just yards away. All the volunteers that were leaving and most of the coordinators had been there, sharing memories and thoughts, the way they did every week. That part had been beautiful, as always. Then they had waited, hoping for the lions to roar in the sunset like every night. They hadn't, not until the group had left.  
   Blaine had gotten used to the ceremony that was lion roars during his year as a coordinator. He'd seen volunteers, his friends, leave countless times now. Never, not since he was a volunteer himself, had it felt like he was the one who was leaving. Not until now.  
   He had had to put on a mask to get through it. Kurt had been silently crying through the whole thing, but his voice had been clear and strong when he had spoken about his favourite memories. That first baboon walk. Feeding Audrey. The sleepouts with the baboons, and with Atheno. The bonfire nights.  
   Finding Blaine. He hadn't said that. He didn't need to.  
   As a volunteer, crying was acceptable, even expected. Most of them had been. As a coordinator, Blaine was supposed to be a shoulder, a rock for them to find support in. Blaine had done his best, just hoping it was enough.  
   He met up with Kurt over at the bar, pleased to see a small smile on Kurt's lips as their eyes met.  
   "I got an email from Carole", he said. "'Dad seems to be doing fine, and the doctors are optimistic."  
   "That's fantastic news", Blaine said, pulling Kurt into a hug.  
   "I'm still going, though", Kurt said, as if to clarify. Blaine nodded.  
   "I know you are. You should be, because you would never forgive yourself for not being there when your family needs you."  
   "So how long do we have to stay here?" Kurt asked in a low voice. "I mean, dinner is done, we're doing the goodbyes tomorrow... it's only beer pong and dance for the rest of the night, right?  
   "What are you thinking?" Blaine asked.  
   "I was thinking I kind of want to spend as much of my last evening as I can with my boyfriend", Kurt said, with a voice that sent shivers through Blaine. "Preferably doing things that aren't appropriate with an audience."  
   "I'm so sorry, but I am on duty tonight", Blaine said. "I am the sober coordinator, so I'll have to be here until they close the bar. Shouldn't be too late, though, but I unfortunately can't go anywhere before then. But I was thinking..." Blaine kept his voice as low as he could while still audible over the loud music "maybe you don't have to go back to the village tonight? No one is going to be sober enough to notice anyways, and if they do... well' it's our last night, I don't think anyone would blame us."  
   Kurt thought for a second.  
   "I haven't packed", he said, sadly. "Like, at all. But maybe..."  
   "What?"  
   "Maybe if I go back now, and pack, and then come back here as soon as I am done?"  
   "That's a good idea", Blaine agreed, wishing he could go with Kurt, not wanting to let his boyfriend out of sight for the few hours they had left together. "Hurry back to me?"  
   "Always", Kurt said.  
   Blaine spent the following hours listening to Quinn and Alex, keeping the act up of being in a good mood, even though there was a constant feeling of the world falling apart. He barely noticed the party going on around him, which probably wasn't too good, seeing as he was supposed to make sure it stayed under control. But it was all right. Quinn had taken one look at Blaine after lion roars, and then promptly handed back the cider she had just ordered at the bar. If there were any disasters tonight, she would have Blaine's back. He just had to stay around for good appearance.

Kurt was back right before the last round at the bar. He heard the call from outside, and decided to go straight to Blaine's room, wanting to avoid the questions about where he'd been all night. Blaine would be off soon, anyways. He ended up on the ground next to one of the baboon enclosures. They were close enough to Blaine's place, but he didn't want to flaunt where he was going if anyone else walked by. Rosie came up to the fence, moving in that weird way of hers without using her fourth leg. He groomed her back until Blaine showed up, just a couple of minutes later.  
   They made their way to Blaine's room, not saying a word until the door closed behind them.  
   "God, I've missed you all night", Blaine then murmured, wrapping Kurt tightly in his arms. Kurt wished he'd never let go.  
   "I'm here now", he chose to say, not mentioning how much more Blaine would have to miss him. "Every minute until tomorrow, I'm here."  
   They lay down on the bed, wrapping together again as soon as they touched the sheets. Blaine's head was resting on Kurt's chest, right underneath his chin. And after being the one who had been broken all afternoon, after being comforted and hugged by almost everyone who's seen him, Kurt found himself having to do the comforting, now. Because Blaine's sobs racked through his body so hard, so hard that they left Kurt shaking, too. He drew himself even closer to Blaine, one arm around his chest and the other hand buried in his curls. And he held on close, suddenly drowned by the fear that if he didn't hold on hard enough, Blaine would fall apart completely.  
   "I'm sorry", Blaine managed to stutter between sobs. "I'm sorry, I should be... This is ...worse... for you. I should... I should be... strong... the strong one."  
   "Hey, shhh", Kurt whispered, tracing calming circles on any part of Blaine he could reach. "Hey, it's okay."  
   "But you are the one who..." Blaine tried to protest.  
   " _I_ am the one who are leaving. I'm abandoning you."  
   "You are not -" Blaine tried again, more intensively.  
   "I am!" Kurt said, breaking off any more attempts. "I'm not saying you think of it that way, or that I do. And I'm not saying that either of us think I am doing the wrong thing. But I am leaving you, and you are allowed to feel sad. And scared, and hurt, even if you don't want to."  
   His words only made Blaine cry harder. Kurt was beginning to worry he didn't get enough air.  
   "I think that maybe it's actually easier for me." Kurt said, thoughtfully. "I hate leaving, I really do, but it's still my choice. I choose to change my plan, and our plan together, thereby changing yours too. And you didn't even have a say in it."  
   "I'd want you to choose this", Blaine said, finally calming down just a little bit, managing to get the entire sentence out uninterrupted.  
   "I know you would", Kurt said, with a small smile. "But it's still not your choice. And being abandoned... I think that might be the worst feeling in the world."  
   Blaine sobbed even harder. 

### Thursday, eleventh week

For the first time in months, Blaine had woken from the lion roars that he usually didn't register anymore. Loud and clear, sounding like they were just a few yards from his front step. Just like any other morning.  
   This hadn't been any other morning.  
   Kurt had been stirring, stretching a little, somewhere between sleep and consciousness. Still in that blissful state of unawareness. Blaine had wished he could stay there, but of course that wasn't the case.    Because then Kurt had opened his eyes, and looked straight at Blaine. For a second, a smile had started to build in his features. And then...  
   Blaine had seen the exact moment realization hit Kurt. The moment when his mouth tensed, his eyebrows frowned just a tiny bit, and sorrow filled his eyes. It had been followed by tears.  
   Blaine had pulled himself closer, and Kurt had burrowed his face in the nape of Blaine's neck. When they had risen, Blaine's shoulder had been wet from all the crying.  
   They had taken the much-too-short tour around the farm. Thankfully, there weren't many people out yet, and they had been able to talk freely. They had walked by all the enclosures, and Kurt had done his best to say proper goodbyes to the animals. He'd been sobbing quietly the entire time.  
   They had been outside the baboons when Blaine had said it. Kurt had been squatting by the fence, his hand holding Rosie's, and Rosie's other hand grooming Kurt's hair. It was so much like that first baboon walk, what felt like years ago, that it kind of just slipped out.  
   "I love you." And then, in sort of a nervous ramble, he had added: "I'm not saying that because you're leaving. I'm saying it because it's true."  
   Kurt had stood up, and without even a glance around them, he had kissed Blaine. "I love you, too", he had whispered against Blaine's lips. "And not just because I'm leaving."

And now, the time was here. The cars were parked, the bags were loaded, and the certificates had been handed out. All that was left was the final hugs, and then the cars would leave. Blaine was in the end of the long half-circle with people who were staying, giving out hug after hug to the leaving volunteers. Kurt was last in the line, hugging all the volunteers who were staying, exchanging a few words with a few of them. His shoulders were tense, his voice a bit shaky. Blaine could see how hard he worked to keep it together, but the result was poor. It was okay, though, it wasn't as if he was the only volunteer who was sad to go.  
   Kurt reached Quinn at last, at the same time as Blaine hugged the last volunteer before him. Camilla? He wasn't sure, she'd been one of the two-weekers and honestly, Blaine hadn't been the best at his job the last few weeks.  
   Quinn whispered something to Kurt, and Blaine couldn't hear it, but it brought a small smile to Kurt's face and Blaine was grateful. And then it was their turn.  
   Everything was already said, they had had all night and all morning to say everything they needed, and Blaine felt like they had ran out of words. Actions were out of question, seeing as they were surrounded by not only all the volunteers but also the entire staff. Blaine settled for a hug, and Kurt answered with almost crushing Blaine's ribs.  
   "I'll come back", Kurt said, finally, quietly. "I promise. And until then..."  
   "We'll email all the time, and skype as often as we can", Blaine said. "And I'll come visit when I have time off. It'll be okay." _I love you._ The last part was just a thought, but he knew Kurt heard it anyways. 

It didn't feel okay. It didn't feel okay _at all_. The wheels were rolling now, and all Kurt wanted was to yell for someone to stop the car. He wasn't leaving, after all, he couldn't take it. But he knew he had to, he had to be there for his father.  
   Kurt looked back through the window for as long as he could. He saw Blaine, with Quinn's arm around his shoulders, in the middle of the group of faces that Kurt was going to miss. Most of them, he would never see again. A few of them, maybe he would. One of them he definitely would.  
   The people were small now, Kurt could barely make them out anymore. Another few seconds, and they were gone. Kurt had expected this to be the worst moment, when he couldn't see Blaine anymore, but really this was easier than the actual goodbye.  
   The bush passed outside the window. They left the farm through the main gate, and once again it felt a bit weird to be on a real road. He could see the lifeline fence along the road for at least a couple of miles, before it turned into lower cattle fencing. They had officially left Harnas.  
   Kurt's phone chimed, and he was so surprised he almost forgot to check the display. He hadn't gotten a text in months, everyone knew he was abroad.  
    _"I love you. See you soon <3"_ Blaine, of course. A grin spread across Kurt's face.  
    _"Can't wait! <3 Love you"_, he replied.  
   Kurt didn't know exactly when soon would be, but that wasn't the important part. They were going to see each other again, and until then, they would just have to learn all about having a long distance relationship. Kurt had seen and done so many impossible things in the last months, he didn't doubt for a second that they could make this work, too. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm SO SORRY for the late posting, guys! I've been volunteering at a multi-fandom convention all weekend and somewhere in all that, even though I'd prepared the chapter in advance, the actual posting must've slipped my mind. But here it is, anyways!
> 
> This was the last chapter to this story. There is an epilogue, which is to be posted next weekend (hopefully on time!). Thank you for reading!


	16. Epilogue

There were foot prints in the snow on the doorstep.  
   Well, technically, there weren't. There were foot prints below the doorstep. On the stair up to the door, there were paw prints.  
   Kurt didn't think much about them the first second, and then he looked again. After all, there had been no dog in the house, as far as he knew. And those... Those weren't dog prints. Kurt would know those prints anywhere. Claw marks, four digits, three lobes in the back.   
   For a moment, those tracks brought him back. To summer, to warmth, to hard work and laughter. To love. He was hit with such a wave of longing, his entire body shuddered, and tears threatened to form in his eyes. The milk he had set out to buy was quickly forgotten.  
   Kurt had moved back to Ohio after his dad's heart attack. Since he'd quit his job in New York, there had been nothing keeping him there, and it felt good being able to look after Burt. After a lot of encouragement from his parents, and from Rachel, he'd reapplied for NYADA for spring term, and was waiting to hear back from them any day now. Blaine and Kurt had stayed in touch through constant chatting, emails, and skype dates at least twice a week. The distance and the time difference was hard on them, but they made it work, and Kurt was saving up to be able to visit over summer break. 

He was silly, and he knew it. There were no cheetahs in Ohio, he had to be mistaken. The third back lobe, the only thing separating the track from a dog track, had to be his imagination, or a coincidence, a tumor on the dog's paw or something. Cheetah paws couldn't possibly have made prints in his father's front yard. And yet, Kurt found himself following the tracks, passed the gate, where they met up with the footprints, and then away along the sidewalk. The two sets of prints were walking side by side, the exact way a person and a dog would, and Kurt once again told himself that he was ridiculous. He should turn around and go to buy milk.  
   He didn't. The tracks led to the park, and Kurt followed them there. He was so focused on separating them from the other tracks, as they came close to the entrance, that he didn't see him until they were about 20 yards apart.  
   There, next to the big tree, in the middle of the tracks Kurt was following, he stood, with a smile as bright as the African sun. Kurt froze, then started running, and Blaine tried to catch him as Kurt threw his arms around him, but they ended up in a snowy pile.  
   "Please don't tell me you flew a cheetah over here", was the first thing Kurt said, after not seeing his boyfriend in person for almost six months.  
   "I borrowed a dog, and used rubber ball for the third lobe", Blaine chuckled, and Kurt was on top of him, hugging him so tight he could feel the laugh as much as he heard it.   
   "How did you know I would follow?" Kurt looked up. "Couldn't you just have rung the doorbell like a normal person?"  
   "That wouldn't have been as fun", Blaine said. "And I knew you wouldn't be able to resist, if you saw "cheetah" tracks. God, I've missed you so much!"  
   "I've missed you too!" Kurt said. "Oh my god! What are you even doing here? You're supposed to be in Namibia. Actually, you're supposed to have a skype date with me in less than an hour. How long are you staying, are you on leave? How did you even get here, we talked yesterday, did you just go straight from the airport and borrowed a dog? Whose dog is it, anyways, and where is it now?"   
   Kurt knew he was rambling, but he just had so many questions and he couldn't believe Blaine was actually here.   
   "I'm staying", Blaine said. "I got accepted to NYU, part time music studies, and I've got an interview at a wildlife reserve not too far from campus. I didn't want to get your hopes up, so I didn't tell you in case I wouldn't be able to go. But I'm here, I'm staying, and right now, that's all you need to know."  
   "But how-"  
   "Kurt?"  
   Kurt stopped, looking up and meeting Blaine's eyes.  
   "Just shut up and kiss me, will you?"  
   And Kurt did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for going with me on this journey!
> 
> And what a journey it has been. I started writing this fic more than two and a half years ago, on a plane from Japan home to Sweden, right after spending ten (fantastic) weeks at Harnas. This fic is a tiny bit inspired by what went on between two girls (a volunteer and a coordinator) during that time. For me, writing this fic has been a way of dealing with being home, and reliving and making up moments from my favorite place on earth. I couldn't imagine it ending up over 50k, and when I started posting, I was pretty scared that it would be too out there, too weird for people to want to read. I'm glad that wasn't the case! 
> 
> A huge thanks to my beta aka my girlfriend, for ideas and inspiration, for constantly trying to write my fanfiction, and most of all for endless cheers and support. Love you! <3 Also a big thanks to my current flatmate for help, comments and laughs, the nights when all three of us have been sitting up way too late writing have been the best!
> 
> There is a bit more backstory to the epilogue, that I may or may not consider posting as one or a few oneshots in the distant future. I won't promise anything, but I have a few ideas, and it's possible that they might happen. If not, I hope I can start writing on another project soon.
> 
> Thank you all again, I've had a lot of fun writing and posting this, and I hope you've had as much fun reading it!!!


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